Andrea Kremer catches up with Phil Jackson in the latest edition of Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (HBO, Tuesday, 10 p.m.).
At age 66 and one year removed from his final season with the Lakers, Jackson doesn’t appear overly eager to leave his Montana retreat. Judging from the view, would you?
Here’s excerpts from the interview.
On the possibility of coaching the Knicks:
ANDREA KREMER: You wouldn’t have taken the Knick job?
PHIL JACKSON: No. I wouldn’t take…
ANDREA KREMER: Why? This is—the ties to this job go back as far as your whole career.
PHIL JACKSON: Yeah, it’s great. It’s great.
ANDREA KREMER: And you’ve always said New York is special to you.
PHIL JACKSON: New York is special.
ANDREA KREMER: Why do you dismiss it then, possibility, even?
PHIL JACKSON: Well, it just– there’s just too much work that has to be done with that team. You know? It’s just not quite– it’s clumsy. It’s a little bit of a clumsy team. It’s not, you know.—
ANDREA KREMER: What’s “clumsy” mean?
PHIL JACKSON: Well, they don’t fit together well. Stoudemire doesn’t fit together well with Carmelo. Stoudemire’s really good player. But he’s gotta play in a certain system and a way. Carmelo has to be a better passer. And the ball can’t stop every time it hits his hands. They need to have someone come in that can kinda blend that group together.
ANDREA KREMER: But wouldn’t you have been the perfect person to come in and blend all that talent together? You sort of have a good history of that.
PHIL JACKSON Yeah. Well, it didn’t happen.
On perception the game has passed him by:
ANDREA KREMER: Do you think there’s some perception out there that, you know, you are done, you’re– your health and even though you’ve…
PHIL JACKSON The game– has passed me by.
ANDREA KREMER: Do you think that’s what the perception is of you?
PHIL JACKSON: I think that’s possible.
ANDREA KREMER: Is it true?
PHIL JACKSON :Well, maybe it is.
ANDREA KREMER: Well, what do you think?
PHIL JACKSON: Well, I have never– I mean, you know, as much as I’ve been around this game, it doesn’t happen. The game doesn’t pass a person by.
On his final game:
PHIL JACKSON : It was humbling. Not the way I wanna see my players behave on the court. Andrew particularly, you know, took his jersey off and walked off the court in a way that was, you know, sense of arrogance. The game itself was bad enough as it went.So it– it was kinda like– so this is how it’s gonna end, huh? This is an interesting closure to chapter of basketball.
ANDREA KREMER : Everything you just described, the way the game ended, the way the players behaved, it was almost a repudiation of everything that you stood for.
PHIL JACKSON : Yeah. It really was.