Much like Donald Trump’s time in the White House, Phil Jackson’s tenure as president of the New York Knicks ended in shame, unemployment and a lot of memes. And now the legendary NBA coach says he has a better understanding of Trump thanks to the way he was treated by the New York sports media.
As Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News recapped, Jackson appeared on the “The Curious Leader” podcast, hosted by former Los Angeles Laker Coby Karl. On the episode, he talked a lot about the “major disappointment” that was his time in New York, which included a number of controversies and a falling out with Carmelo Anthony that ultimately led to his dismissal.
The stories of Jackson’s time in New York that have come out since his firing have, admittedly, not been great. But Jackson has framed that as a media that was out to get him from the start. And, quite bizarrely, he sympathized with Trump and the way the media handled, well, everything that happened with him during his four years in office.
Jackson, 75, detailed several crisis points in his four seasons with the Knicks, which ended with an awful record and about $24 million remaining on his contract. But he steered much of the conversation to his persecution by a media that “was decidedly against the organization and they were looking for whatever they can do to throw aspersions.”
The Zen Master even compared himself to the former United States president.
“I kind of understand Trump had to live with probably for his first 3 ½ years in office with the media,” Jackson said.
Regardless of the self-reflection found elsewhere in the podcast, it’s a really weird thing to compare yourself to a president who was impeached twice and spent the final months of his time in office quite literally undermining the democratic process. Jackson is clear to say the last half year in office for Trump was not comparable to his time in New York, but the time he’s finding a connection with included one impeachment, a mismanaged COVID-19 crisis that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and countless controversies about corruption, stoking of racial tensions and other instances certainly worthy of media scrutiny.
It perhaps speaks to not only Jackson’s interpretation of media coverage of Trump, but of himself in the New York media. He, for example, claimed that his comments about LeBron James that were widely condemned as racist were overblown by reporters who were looking for things to get upset about.
Jackson was also blasted by LeBron James for referring to his business partners as “posse.” It was labeled a racist comment and James said he lost all respect for the Hall of Fame coach.
“There was a lot of distortion that went into it,” Jackson said on the podcast. “And texting and media was a big part of it … But I used that terminology that we used a lot. And it was roundly made a racist remark or whatever it was. That can be thrown into the mix.”
Jackson made it clear in the podcast appearance: the collective media never took his side on anything while he was in New York. But looking at all the things there were to take sides on, so to speak, perhaps it makes sense that Jackson would find similarities with Trump after all.
[via New York Daily News]
