Mark Jackson remains one of the more unique cases we’ve ever seen when it comes to a former NBA coach not being able to get another shot.
Jackson was very successful in his first, and so far only, coaching stint in the NBA, turning the 23-win Warriors into a 51-win team all in the span of three seasons. Yet, Jackson was fired after the 2013-14 season and has not been able to land another job for a variety of reasons, many of which were recently laid out in former Warriors beat writer Ethan Strauss’ latest piece on his ‘House of Strauss’ Substack.
The piece details how Jackson’s paranoia for being undermined put him at odds with Warriors management, with Jackson refusing to hire top tier assistant coaches despite ownership’s desires. It also reveled that Jackson made homophobic slurs when talking about then Warriors executive Rick Welts and Jason Collins, both of whom are openly gay.
On Thursday, Strauss joined KNBR to talk about the article, and discuss if he thinks Jackson will ever get another coaching job in the NBA.
“I don’t think he will, but maybe it’s okay if he does,” Strauss told Lund & Crowley. “I’m not so judgemental. I think people get a certain assumption from the revelations of the article of how he was conducting himself in 2013-2014. I think people can change. I don’t believe that because of what happened back then that’s who you are forever. I don’t actually think that.
“In fact — and this maybe isn’t best journalistic practice — I waited until he didn’t get that Sacramento job, and he came close, and I don’t think the Laker thing is going to work out — but I waited until that job didn’t come to pass to put that out there, because I didn’t want to get involved in that. I knew the Kings knew about that stuff, but teams get reactive to what’s in the media sometimes. I actually waited on it because I didn’t really want to influence things. I just wanted to talk about what was interesting potentially to the readers.
“I think now that he’s not with Klutch, now that the Laker opening seems like more of a closing, it’s just hard to see those opportunities out there. So I would have to guess no, but who knows?”
Interestingly, Strauss believes that although the homophobic comments were the most shocking elements of Jackson’s tenure with the Warriors, they ultimately weren’t what did him in.
“That’s not really what got him fired. It certainly didn’t help. I think it might prevent him from getting a future job because there’s more sensitivity to those off the court issues.
“What really doomed him is he couldn’t manage up. He had an interesting form of charisma, where to get good with the young team, he presented himself as the bulwark between the young players and management, whom he demonized. That might have worked as far as making the young players feel a responsibility to him, but it got him fired ultimately.
“I think that plus how he wouldn’t accept outside help. I kind of think insecurity was self-fulfilling for him. The insecurity of being able to keep his job is ultimately what lost it.”
Listen to the full interview below. You can listen to every KNBR interview on our podcast page at knbr.com/podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Catch Papa & Lund weekdays from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. on KNBR 104.5 / 680 and streaming live on KNBR.com.