Phil Jackson addresses comments about NBA being too political

Legendary NBA coach Phil Jackson has further explained what became controversial comments about the current state of the Association. 

"I don’t think people got the humor," Jackson said during the latest edition of the "Stacey King’s Gimme The Hot Sauce" podcast, as shared by Ryan Gilbert of Audacy. "The names are on the back of the players that were in the bubble because if you apply them to defending and challenging and going to the hoop, and you use those monikers that were on the names, it had a funny aspect to it. That’s just what I was bringing up to the kids. Visually, this is kind of humorous." 

Rich Calder of the New York Post noted in a piece published on April 22 how Jackson said on the "Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin" podcast he "couldn’t watch" NBA games held in the bubble format during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic because of the "slogans on the floor and the baseline" and because of players sporting words such as "Justice" on the backs of their jerseys. 

The 2019-20 season restarted amid nationwide protests related to racial injustices and police brutality following the killing of George Floyd.

Jackson remarked last month he found the words on the backs of jerseys humorous because of certain in-game situations. 

"'Justice' just went to the basket and 'Equal Opportunity' just knocked him down," Jackson said at the time. Jackson also accused the NBA of "trying to cater to an audience or trying to bring a certain audience to the game" and of "turning other people off" with decisions made in the summer of 2020. 

"People want to see sports as non-political," Jackson added. "Politics stays out of the game; it doesn’t need to be there." 

The 11-time NBA champion coach more recently insisted to King he wasn't speaking out against the "Black Lives Matter" movement earlier this spring. 

"I had nothing against 'BLM' or the cause that was behind it," Jackson said. "The humorous nature of going completely 'woke' by the NBA really was like, it’s pretty hard to watch."