Legendary NBA coach Phil Jackson's first-ever tweet back in 2013 was a cryptic if innocuous one. He posted another cryptic tweet Tuesday -- his first in over a month -- but Watch Friendsthis digital missive contains multitudes.
And it certainly seems to escalate some drama with Carmelo Anthony.
SEE ALSO: NBA star J.R. Smith shares moving photo after baby daughter's preterm birthJackson, of course, made his name as the championship coach for the Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls in the 1990s and the Kobe-Shaq L.A. Lakers dynasties of the 2000s. Jackson no longer coaches, but in 2014 was hired by the New York Knicks as an executive overseeing player personnel. The Knicks haven't made the playoffs once since Jackson was hired.
Anthony, meanwhile, is the Knicks' biggest star. He excelled for Team USA at the Olympics last summer. But this season has been a drawn-out, well, Melo-drama (sorry) regarding his future in New York. Anthony is a ball-dominant shooter who isn't always efficient -- a nice way of saying ball-hog, basically. The relationship between him, Knicks brass and New York fans appears from the outside to be tenser than it's been since he joined the team in 2011.
And so we arrive at Jackson's Tuesday tweet.
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At first glance, this appears to be some jive mumbo-jumbo from the man they used to call the Zen Master for the psychological mastery he supposedly had over his players. But a closer read gets us to the juiciness.
First off, who is the "Bleacher's Ding" referenced by Jackson? That would appear to be Kevin Ding, a senior writer for Bleacher Report. Tuesday morning, Ding published a column that read more or less like an evenhanded evisceration of Anthony as a player.
"PHIL JACKSON, KNICKS DOOMED BY WANTING CARMELO TO BE SOMETHING HE IS NOT," reads the headline.
Ding's piece closely examines Anthony's career. It looks back over the years at Anthony multiple times prioritizing money and fame over situations conducive to winning. Ding draws the conclusion that Anthony is simply not as hungry to win championships as Jordan or Kobe, Jackson's previous stars. That might seem a bit harsh on one level, but Ding's piece also reads as even-handed and fair to the truth.
OK, so we've parsed the first part of Jackson's tweet. Now who's "Michael Graham," the second guy he mentions?
Ding himself answered that question shortly after Jackson's post.
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You can read up on Graham's career here, if you like. In the meantime, we may have solved Jackson's little riddle.
Jackson, it sure seems, is signing off on Ding's column, even drawing a comparison between Anthony and an underachieving would-be-star Jackson coached way back before he became big-time.
Jackson has publicly called out Anthony before -- in December he criticized the star for not passing enough.
Anthony has a no-trade clause in his contract, so he'd have to approve any transaction the Knicks would make to move him to another team. The situation in New York sure doesn't look pleasant though -- and Jackson's cryptic Tuesday tweet throws another log on the fire.
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