Former NBA Coach Phil Jackson, who won 11 championships over his coaching career while coaching the Lakers and the Bulls from 1989 to 2011, says that he believes the NBA should leave behind woke politics.
The Post Millennial reports that Jackson says that the NBAs political signaling has gone too far and that people want to see sports become non-political again. Jackson went on the Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin podcast on April 5 to speak about some of the latest policies enacted by the NBA. The interviewer asked Jackson if he still enjoys watching NBA matchups. He indicated that while he enjoyed watching the NBA games, he no longer does. He said plainly, Im not enjoying the game.
Rubin asked if he had stopped watching the games upon his retirement. Rubin replied:
No, I didnt. I watched the game evolve and decided [that] they went into the lockout year, and they did something that was [kind of] wonky. They did a bubble down in Orlando. And all the teams that could qualify went down there, stayed [down] there.
Fox News reports that the Orlando NBA Bubble exists so the NBA could finish off its 2019-2020 season amid the COVID pandemic.
Jackson spoke with players in the league then and said:
And they had things on their back like justice, and I made a little funny thing like, [you know], Justice just went to the basket, and equal opportunity just knocked him down.
Jackson said that his grandchildren thought his play up on the political slogans was quite humorous. I couldnt watch that, said Jackson about the political slogans and signaling that the NBA has continued to do in recent years. The coach said the following: It was trying to cater to an audience or [trying to bring] a certain audience into [play], and they didnt know it was turning other people off, you know, people want to see sports as non-political.
and
You know, weve had, weve had a lot of different types of players that have gone on to be like, you know, Bill Bradley was a senator, [a number of] baseball players have been representatives and senators and political, but their politics stay out of the game.
He has expressed what many others think about the recent turn the NBA has taken.
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