Appearing on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” Thursday night, legendary coach Phil Jackson, 67, confirmed earlier reports that he talked about working with Chris Hansen if he brought the Kings to Seattle. The 11-time champion, who hasn’t coached since 2011, was interested in a top executive job.“You know, I had communication with (Hansen). It was serious talk. I thought he was a really good guy for the league; I thought he was going to be really terrific,” Jackson said. “I thought Seattle’s a terrific town to have a basketball team. They lost one, unfortunately. They wanted one back. Didn’t work out.”
Jackson has turned down offers for executive positions and was holding off on other possibilities until the NBA Board of Governors turned down Hansen’s bid to relocate the Kings to Seattle. The team is in the process of being sold by the Maloof family for $535 million to a Sacramento group led by tech billionaire Vivek Ranadive.
Jackson begins talking about his Hansen conversation around the four-minute mark of the accompanying 10-minute video.
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I saw this last night. Very interesting to watch. Hard to say how Jackson would be as a president/GM. As Mike Holmgren has shown, a coach does not a GM make. Pat Riley seems to have done a solid job with the Heat but he has an open purse to work with, moreso than most of the NBA. However that might have been the case if the Kings came to Seattle. We’ll never know.
Nice to hear Jackson be so forthcoming. As much as Hansen would have been a credit to the league so would Jackson be returning to the NBA. But hey, the team that’s been in the cellar of the NBA the past five years is staying put and it will be business as usual with them. That’s what’s important right?
What a class guy. Saying Hansen and Seattle would have been good for the league and acknowledging he had serious discussions to join the new Sonics. The Commish just torched this market, bad business to let pettiness seep in. As for Phil’s ability to GM, I prefer to keep the comparisons to the NBA. Instead of Holmgren, think Jerry West. The Logo traded Vlade Divacs for Kobe, rebuilt Memphis (traded Gasol for Gasol) and now is advising Golden State ( drafted Harrison Barnes). I think Phil would have, could have been a great GM here in Seattle. A great opportunity missed by the league and it’s toad king.
does hansen have a daughter old enough to date phil jackson? go pacers!