Phil Jackson isn’t sorry he used the word “posse” to describe LeBron James and his business partners/friends. But he does regret talking about the four-time MVP at all.
Jackson said the following during an interview with CBS Sports (via the New York Daily News’ Stefan Bondy):
“We are not supposed to discuss other teams’ players in this position that I have here. So I violated one of the tenets,” Jackson said in a wide-ranging interview with CBS Sports. “The obvious thing is, the word itself carries connotation. And I just don’t understand that part of it, the word. So I guess word choice could be something I could regret. But talking about other teams’ players, that’s out of the box.”
…
“It’s water under the bridge,” he said. “I don’t think there was anybody hurt or harmed in this situation. I think LeBron’s friend obviously had an issue with it. We just let it go. It’s not enough to talk about it.”
So Jackson isn’t really sorry. Got it.
Though, to his slight defense, he could have handled this far worse, outrightly refusing to apologize. At least this forced non-apology acknowledges he shouldn’t have been talking about LeBron in the first place, as Carmelo Anthony astutely pointed out when this all first happened.
And who knows, maybe Jackson and LeBron have tacitly buried the hatchet. Or perhaps, despite what LeBron said, they’ll meet up and talk it out at some point.
In the interim, you have to wonder how much Jackson hurt the optics of a New York Knicks franchise that hardly ever does itself any favors to begin with.
