Interviewer: “Do you still watch a lot of basketball, and when did you stop immediately from when the time you stopped coaching?”
Phil Jackson: “They went into the lockout year and they did something that was kind of wanky. They did a bubble in Orlando and all the teams that could qualify went down there and stayed down there. They had things on their back like ‘JUSTICE’… And I made a little funny thing like ‘Justice just went to the basket and Equal Opportunity just knocked him down’… It was something my grand kids thought was pretty funny to play up those names. So I couldn’t watch that. The Lakers won that year.”
Interviewer: “What was it that turned you off?”
Jackson: “They even had slogans on the floor, on the baseline. It was catering. It was trying to cater to an audience, and trying to bring a certain audience into play. They didn’t know it was turning other people off. People want to see sports as non-political. Bill Bradley was a Senator, a number of former baseball players have been Representatives, Senators, and political, but their politics stay out of the game. It doesn’t need to be there.”
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Jalen Rose: “You can’t make this up. Hall of Fame coach and 11-time champion, Phil Jackson, claims to have stopped supporting the NBA because it ‘became too political’ when it went into the bubble, and was catering to certain audiences by putting slogans on the back of jerseys, and ‘Black Lives Matter’ on the floor. The same Phil Jackson that won championships with some of the greatest Black athletes in the history of the game— Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant— made millions on their backs and off their sweat equity. You’re sitting there watching the game with your grand kids and ya’ll think it’s funny when ‘Justice’ passes the ball to ‘Equal Opportunity’? When somebody shows you who they are, believe them. So stop watching, FOREVER.”
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Jason Whitlock: “Jalen you’ve 'shown' who you, you’re an IDIOT. Rose played the race card, what a surprise… Phil Jackson was a pot-smoking, hippie leftist in the 60s and 70s saying what all of us believe, and anybody with any common sense believes— that this over-politicization of basketball, football, and all sports was a mistake. It kind of warmed my heart, I’ve never been a huge Phil Jackson fan, but I love this level of honest and transparency… Jalen spends most of his time high, and he’s lucky he lives in a society where we platform tall idiots, and treat them as if they have something important say. If Jalen Rose was 6’0” he would be bagging groceries somewhere in Detroit, or ‘hi, may I help you?’ at some drive-in window, and I say that in all seriousness. I’ve known Jalen since he was 19. The more money he’s made, the dumber he’s gotten. He was actually smart, more down to the earth, and more authentic at 19 than he is at 47, 48, 50, or whatever he is now. He’s not authentic, he’s not smart, he goes on TV, he goes on social media and just says dumb stuff. Dumb stuff that has no authenticity. Anybody with a brain knows that everybody was laughing and no one was taking serious all that messaging and sloganeering the NBA was doing. Phil Jackson just told you. If it landed that way with a 1960s liberal, how do you think it landed with the rest of America, including Black America? This kind of pointless gesturing that athletes love to do, Phil Jackson just called you out on it and it proved your stupidity. None of that did anything to improve America. You got hoodwinked by three Black lesbian Marxist communist idiots. That’s who you caped up for, Jalen Rose, LeBron James, and all the idiots in the NBA. You got played, suckers.” (Full Segment Above)
Watch Jason Whitlock and Steve Kim of ‘Fearless’ discuss the recent beef between Phil Jackson and Jalen Rose, which was triggered by Rose taking exception to comments Jackson made about his distaste for the NBA’s political agenda during the 2020 ‘Bubble’ in Orlando.
Check out the segment above as Whitlock rips Rose for implying that Jackson may be bigoted, saying of Rose ‘the more money he’s made, the dumber he’s gotten.’
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