Retired Hall of Fame coach Phil Jackson was not a fan of the “politics” of the NBA bubble during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Jackson appeared on the Tetragrammaton podcast with Rick Rubin and pulled no punches while discussing why he doesn’t watch too much professional basketball anymore.
“They had things on their back like ‘Justice’ and a funny thing happened like, ‘Justice went to the basket and Equal Opportunity knocked him down.’ Some of my grandkids thought it was pretty funny to play up those names. I couldn’t watch that,” Jackson said.
“Justice” and “Equal Opportunity” were two of the slogans that players were allowed to wear on the back of their jerseys during the bubble in Orlando, which came on the heels of the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Later in the bubble, the shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin led to games being postponed as players refused to play following the incident.
Jackson believes that allowing players to wear slogans on the backs of their jerseys made the league too political during a polarizing time for the country.
“It was trying to cater to an audience or trying to bring a certain audience to the game … and they didn’t know it was turning other people off. People want to see sports as non-political. Politics stays out of the game. It doesn’t need to be there,” he added.
Whether fans agree or disagree with Jackson’s assessment, his comments will certainly make waves across the sport given his stature in the game.
