New York Knicks president Phil Jackson is really good at his job—provided his job is to destroy the market value of his best assets.
We’re referring, of course, to Jackson’s handling of the Carmelo Anthony situation. He bombed his approach to trying to move him during the regular season, and things didn’t get much better once the Knicks’ schedule wrapped. At his end-of-season presser, he essentially said Anthony needs to take a hike, because New York hasn’t been able to win with him.
Looking beyond how ridiculous this sentiment is on its face, since Jackson has not shouldered nearly enough of the blame for the Knicks’ current transgressions, the Zen Master isn’t doing himself or his franchise any favors by trashing Anthony’s value.
And make no mistake, he’s absolutely trashing it, according to some Eastern Conference executives who spoke with the New York Post‘s Fred Kerber:
“Phil made a statement basically that Carmelo’s a losing type of player. Well, if he’s a loser for the Knicks, he’s going to be a winner someplace else? That obviously didn’t help,” one Eastern Conference executive said.
“Tremendously,” another exec said when asked how much Jackson may have damaged Anthony’s trade value. “He essentially said, ‘I want to dump this guy.’ ” . . .
“Most owners would just roast you if you said something like that,” the Eastern exec said, theorizing the return for Anthony could be “a protected first-round pick. It sure sounds like the Knicks want to get rid of him, so teams won’t give up any of their core to add him. That would be defeating the purpose.”
Anthony is hard enough for the Knicks to move in a vacuum. He turns 33 later this month, squandered any goodwill he built as a primary passer in 2015-16 and seldom checks in on the defensive end anymore. Throw in his $26.3 million salary, plus his early termination option for 2018-19, and dealing him becomes complicated.
Jackson is only making it worse—much worse. Which is pathetic. More notably, it’s disingenuous to his ultimate goal of actually trading Anthony. He’ll be lucky to secure any kind of consequential return for him now, likely leaving him to decide between keeping Melo or sending him elsewhere for what amounts to salary fodder.
What a time to be a Knicks fan.
