Oh, Phil.
If you thought the New York Knicks president would apologize for not-so-subtly subtweeting Carmelo Anthony, I pity you. It was never going to happen. And sure enough, it didn’t happen.
To recap: Bleacher Report’s Kevin Ding authored a piece on how Phil Jackson has expected Anthony to be a player he’s not. While the article was more critical of Melo than the Zen Master himself, the latter felt compelled to defend himself anyway:
Bleacher's Ding almost rings the bell, but I learned you don't change the spot on a leopard with Michael Graham in my CBA daze.
— Phil Jackson (@PhilJackson11) February 7, 2017
Then, on Thursday, as the Knicks continued to clumsily wade their way through the Charles Oakley drama, Jackson responded to the “fire storm” he created with this:
So after starting a ?storm with a misunderstood tweet, I offer this??our society is torn with discord. I'm against it. Let It Be
— Phil Jackson (@PhilJackson11) February 9, 2017
If you’re looking for a translation, fear not, I’ve got one:
https://twitter.com/danfavale/status/829829683231481857
This is also such needless bullshit. Jackson doesn’t want Anthony on his team. That much is clear. And, on some level, it’s fine. If he was going to trade Anthony and rebuild, he should have talked to the aging star about it after last year—you know, before he traded for Derrick Rose and overpaid Joakim Noah.
But, whatever. Let’s just say Jackson realizes he was mistaken (unlikely) and has decided Melo, unlike the other two, holds trade value. So he wants to move him. Again, fine. But that’s a conversation that needs to happen—a legit, polite, professional conversation. He shouldn’t be openly hocking Anthony to three teams, while openly torpedoing his trade value in the process.
This is the point we’ve reached, and we reached it long ago: Anthony’s play style and age and contract may be a problem in New York, but it’s not the problem—not even when we’re talking about it relative to Kristaps Porzingis’ development.
Take everything into account, including the circumstances under which Melo arrived in the Big Apple, and the Knicks have still failed him and themselves far more than he’s hurt them.
