As it turned out, it's comical. Abbott and Costello, the Three Stooges, the Marx brothers, or Congress couldn't have come up with a more hilarious routine.
The NBA was concerned about a possible "conflict of interest" when Phil Jackson became the president of the New York Knicks. Of course, this had everything to do with his long time squeeze Jeanie Buss having inherited the LA Lakers from her late father Jerry.
PJ and JB have been shacking up since 1999. After 13 years, they finally got engaged in 2012. No word yet on impending nuptials. Evidently, these two don't like to rush into things. Or, put another way, imagine if America's famed Minutemen of the Revolutionary War had had the same sort of commitment to their cause. We'll get around to it eventually -- maybe. This country might look a whole lot differently these days. But to each their own, especially when it comes to the glitterati.
No two ways about it. NYC and LA are the two biggest markets in the USA. That includes sports. Madison Square Garden and Staples Center are hallowed ground. You'll never see such notables as Jack Nicholson and Spike Lee sitting court-side game after game, and year after year in, say, Cleveland, Lebron or no Lebron. There's something special about these places.
So when the Zen master took his talents to the Big Apple while presumably continuing to "take care of business" with the beautiful heiress based in La-La land, eyebrows were raised. Perhaps well they should have been. It takes a one-of-a-kind individual indeed to keep a woman "satisfied" when she's 3 time zones and almost 3000 miles away. Forget the triangle offense, this guy can HANG. And then there's the conflict of interest thing. The suits in professional league offices hate that almost as much as gambling, steroids, and having to deal with high-profile criminal offenses allegedly committed by one of their own.
Could it be that Phil and Jeanie might conspire in other hanky-panky when it came to their teams? Horrors!
Even when Jackson was still a "free agent" former NBA Commish David Stern wanted to know what Buss was thinking as her man entertained thoughts of signing on with a few teams in a big time front office job, before finally landing (thudding) with the Knicks.
New Commish Adam Silver made sure to have dinner to talk with Jeanie after Phil took his present job. Gee, given their ilks, I wonder which one wound up picking up the tab?
But that's where the whole overhyped story about a conflict of interest turned out to be "Moe, Larry, Cheese" hilarious.
At the time of this writing, the Knicks have a 13-51 record, a winning percentage of .203. They're terrible. Shameful. Pitiful. The worst team in the entire NBA.
On the other hand, the Lakers are 17-47, a .266 winning percentage, and a mind-boggling 35 -- count em -- THIRTY FIVE games behind in their division. Showtime has turned into blowtime. The once proud franchise has become a total embarrassment.
So between the two teams, if Phil and Jeanie ever gave any thought to working together behind the scenes for the benefit of both -- one might logically conclude the NBA as a whole has nothing to worry about. Conflict of interest? Turns out, it's more like a race to see which team can out-pitiful the other.
Phil Jackson will be 70 in September, and Jeanie will be 54. Chances are, they won't be popping out any Zenbuss rugrats, nuptials or not.
But if such blessed events occur, here's hoping the mini-glits don't grow up to be in charge of an NBA team. It likely wouldn't work out in a competent way either, and Adam Silver or his succesor would probably want to be treated to another dinner while he asked even more dumb questions than he already did of mom and pop.
It was always stupid, but that's what most Commisioners have morphed into these days. A lot of bluster, but not a clue what's really going on.
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