Zen Master to the Rescue

ZEN MASTER TO THE RESCUE

Phil Jackson agrees to be president of the Knicks with a neat $ 12 million salary. This is after he said on Bryant Gumbel’s show “The Knicks didn’t work. Their parts don’t fit” and after being unselected to come back and coach the Lakers.

Yes, Jackson once played for the Knicks, so there’s history but also we think Phil jumping in to run the Knicks organization could very much be all about sticking it to the Lakers and their new boss, Jim Buss.

Whoa, you’re saying, would Phil go this far to needle his girlfriend’s brother, his potential brother-in-law, just because he was slighted on the Laker’s coaching job? Well, um… yeah. Damn, yeah. For $ 12 million, a chance to prove he can resurrect an almost dead franchise plus the added chance to slam it in Jim Buss’s face? Phil Jackson, with all the tender-zen-calmness in the world, would absolutely do that.

New York, New York, a helluva town
The Bronx is up and the Knicks are down

“But not for long,” Knicks fans are crowing. “Phil will have Kobe follow him and we’ll get every free agent we want. The guy has eleven rings.”

Well, rings or not, Jackson said on Gumbel’s Real Sports that Amar’e didn’t fit the system and the ball stopped moving once it hit Carmelo. These seem to be the kind of problems just bringing guys into the office for a breathing relaxation session won’t fix.

But some Knicks fans are responding with “Hold on. Amar’e has been injured for forever. Now, he’s healthy, so is Tyson. Take a look at their record when Ty, Stat and Melo are all playing together! Phil might help but he doesn’t need to screw this up. Oh, wait, I forgot, Dolan still owns the team. Screwing things up are what we do.”

Okay, we’ll need to examine that. Does Hall of Fame mean anything? Phil is a hall of fame coach but Isiah Thomas was a hall of fame player. Isiah’s reign wasn’t exactly stellar. Under Thomas, the Knicks not not only went down it went underground.

New York, New York, a helluva town
The people ride in a hole in the ground

Not Phil, we think. When he was a Knicks player he went everywhere by bicycle. We are not even sure he will set up an office in Madison Square Garden. He could stay in his pajamas and run the biz from his Montana ranch. Telephones and Skype make this possible.

Would that be a job you could handle, show up to work in your pajamas, hire Steve Kerr as coach, show him what a triangle looks like, call up and recruit free agents, fly them in for a cook out, get your cable provided free of charge? Tack on a million per month just for fun? Sure, you could. Even if you didn’t have any more fingers for any more rings. There is always the toe. You’d do it. You would take that job in a minute. Hold it. I meant a New York minute.