Good morning! There's a conference call going on now or soon, so we should have some words from the guys the Knicks just drafted to look at (in the meantime, the second video here-- Thanasis Antetokounmpo near tears in an interview with Tina Cervasio-- will make you feel good). Before everything went down, Phil Jackson spoke to the media. Here's that whole conversation in one piece:
No groundbreaking revelations here (and remember this was pre-draft), but Jackson touched on a few things of note:
- When someone mentions that Jose Calderon's contract increases the Knicks' cap figure past 2015, Jackson says "not much, not enough to worry about it."
- Jackson vaguely points out that part of the reason for the trade was the chemistry of last year's team and guys not having each other's back, which...yeah, that makes sense.
- Jackson once again mentions Carmelo Anthony being "good for what his word is" and says "I want out fans to see that he's a team player" who will "do what's best for the team" when asked about Melo taking a pay cut. When someone leads him with a question about the difficulty of building a championship team around a max contract, Jackson agrees that such a situation creates limitations. BASICALLY he continued to apply pressure to Melo to accept less than a maximum salary while very lightly insinuating that the Knicks are unwilling to pay him the max. That's how I heard it, anyway.
- When asked about the new glut of guards on the team, Jackson mentions that the Knicks will have to "balance that over the summer." They're in a position where the roster would be really backcourt-heavy if they didn't make some more trades, I think.
- Jackson wouldn't take questions about the possibility of a Melo sign-and-trade because he felt "restricted." Free agency begins in just a few days, so yeah.
Watch it for yourself if you please. You won't learn much, but it's nice to hear the guy talk.