NBA Hall of Fame head coach Phil Jackson is trying to carefully walk back his recent claim that the NBA has gotten too political and is now saying that he doesn’t think people understood the “humor” in his comments.
At the end of April, Jackson chided the league for its “wanky” bubble year during the coronavirus hysteria and said that its “catering” to the far left was turning off too many fans.
“They did something that was kind of wanky, they did a bubble down in Orlando, and all the teams that could qualify went down there and stayed down there,” he said. “And they had things on their back like, ‘Justice.’ They made a funny thing like, ‘Justice just went to the basket, and Equal Opportunity just knocked him down.’ … So my grandkids thought that was pretty funny to play up those names. So I couldn’t watch that.”
“It was catering, trying to cater to an audience or trying to bring a certain audience into play,” he said. “They didn’t know it was turning other people off. People want to see sports as non-political,” he said.
Los Angeles Lakers LeBron James (C) with teammates down on one knee and arms interlocked during the anthem before the game vs. Miami Heat at AdventHealth Arena. Game 3. Orlando, FL 10/4/2020. (David E. Klutho/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
But after taking several weeks of criticism, Jackson is now trying to re-explain what he meant and that he is not criticizing the political causes that the league was pushing during the bubble year, Fox News reports.
This week, though, appearing on Stacey King’s Gimme the Hot Sauce podcast, Jackson claims that he meant the remark to relay how “humorous” the situation was during the bubble year.
“I don’t think people got the humor,” Jackson said. “The names are on the back of the players that were in the bubble because if you apply them to defending and challenging and going to the hoop, and you use those monikers that were on the names, it had a funny aspect to it,” Jackson said. “That’s just what I was bringing up to the kids. Visually, this is kind of humorous.”
“I had nothing against BLM or the cause that was behind it. The humorous nature of going completely woke by the NBA really was like, it’s pretty hard to watch,” he continued.
He added that he was joking with his grandkids about the social justice words on players’ backs during that season and that he found it funny. He said that during the games, he would narrate for his grandkids and say things like, “Justice just went to the basket, and Equal Opportunity just knocked him down.”
Head coach Phil Jackson of the Los Angeles Lakers looks on in the first quarter of Game Four of the Western Conference Finals against the Phoenix Suns during the 2010 NBA Playoffs at US Airways Center on May 25, 2010, in Phoenix, Arizona. (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
“So, my grandkids thought that was pretty funny to play up those names. So, I couldn’t watch that,” he said.
“They even had slogans on the floor, on the baseline. It was catering. It was trying to cater to an audience, or trying to bring a certain audience into play. And they didn’t know it was turning other people off. People want to see sports as non-political.
“We’ve had a lot of different type of players that have gone on to be . . . Bill Bradley was a senator, a number of baseball players have been representatives and senators,” he added. “But their politics stay out of the game. It doesn’t need to be there.”
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