No one wants to doubt a 13-time NBA champion, but Phil Jackson is really starting to sound like the grumpy old man who spends his time reminiscing on why things were better back in his day.
May brought us Jackson's now infamous 'How's it goink?' tweet, which prematurely called into question the success of three-point heavy teams in the postseason - the two finalists finished No. 1 and No. 2 in playoff threes attempted per game after both ranked in the top four during the regular season.
With the NBA Draft days away and Jackson's New York Knicks set for a top-five selection, June has brought a number of Jackson interviews, the latest of which sees Jackson continue his assault on the modern game (or at least what he perceives to be the modern game).
"When I watch some of these playoff games, and I look at what's being run out there, as what people call an offense, it's really quite remarkable to see how far our game has fallen from a team game," Jackson told Bleacher Report's Howard Beck. "Four guys stand around watching one guy dribble a basketball."
Has the 68-year-old perhaps mistaken a binge of NBA Classics viewing from the 1990s and early 2000s with action from the 2014-15 season?
Either way, the Knicks president also lamented the lack of fundamentals and structure in today's game, and not even King James was safe.
"I watch LeBron James, for example. He might (travel) every other time he catches the basketball if he's off the ball," Jackson told Beck. "He catches the ball, moves both his feet. You see it happen all the time. There's no structure, there's no discipline, there's no 'How do we play this game' type of attitude. And it goes all the way through the game. To the point where now guys don't screen--they push guys off with their hands."
Ever the philosopher, the Zen Master even found a way to compare his issues with selfish basketball to his hot take on America as a whole. "The game actually has some beauty to it, and we've kind of taken some of that out of it to make it individualized," he said. "It's a lot of who we are as a country, individualized stuff."
Jackson's complaints are rather confounding when you consider that isolation basketball has faded in recent years, with champions like the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs at the forefront of modern offenses predicated on movement, space, and sharing the ball.
Of course, those offenses are also predicated on three-point shooting, which as Beck reminds readers, isn't what Jackson is about:
But he disdains much of what he sees: an endless series of pick-and-roll plays, one setting up the next, until someone gets a layup or a three-pointer.
So to summarize, Jackson hates the selfish brand basketball that has slowly disappeared from the game but he believes is running rampant. And he also disdains the entertaining brand of basketball which is actually prevalent right now and is predicated upon creating the most valuable shots in the game.
It sounds like the Knicks are in great hands.
