Kenny Smith credits former Steph Curry coach Mark Jackson for saving the league: “It’s a travesty that he’s not coaching”
It is no secret that Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors completely changed basketball as we know it. After a long period when the NBA had been largely dominated by interior scorers and midrange magicians, things began to change. With the emergence of the Warriors' dominance came an era that has been defined by the 3-pointer.
Teams began trying to replicate Golden State's high-volume offense, which saw countless players add Curry-esque pull-up 3-pointers to their repertoire. With the change also came the addition of 3-point-shooting big men like Brook Lopez and Nikola Jokic. Today, the game of basketball looks far different than it did 20 years ago.
While Steph Curry receives much of the credit for sparking the change that spread throughout the league, Kenny "The Jet" Smith wants Mark Jackson to get his recognition. He discussed Jackson's impact on the NBA on "The Draymond Green Show."
The two discussed Jackson no longer coaching as the result of reports of blatant homophobia and religious preaching, with Smith saying:
"There are lies about Mark Jackson right now that I hear, and they go, 'Yo, hey, your boy did this' and 'Why your boy said that?'" Smith said. "And I'm like, 'No, that's a lie. I speak to the dude every day. Like, I speak to Mark at least once a week. No, Mark doesn't think like that. He didn't say that. No, he didn't do that.
"So, now as an owner or a general manager they're hearing the lies and they're not doing the research to find the truth, because the truth would say exactly what you said. ... He (Steph Curry) was going to be traded until Mark Jackson got there. He saved not only the franchise, he saved the league. ... It's a travesty that he's not coaching basketball."
You can see his comments in the video above beginning at the one-hour, fourteen-minute mark.
Is Mark Jackson being blackballed after turning around Steph Curry's career?
After just three seasons with the Golden State Warriors, Mark Jackson was fired. Considering he had completely changed the trajectory of Steph Curry's career and turned the Warriors into one of the best franchises in the league, it seemed strange.
When it came to basketball, the team's performance was everything you could want. Despite that, there was more at play behind the scenes that set the stage for Jackson's departure. During an interview in 2019, Andre Iguodala spoke about the circumstances that led to Warriors owner Rick Welts parting ways with the coach.
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He spoke on the "Breakfast Club," explaining that the players were big fans of Jackson. On top of his rocky relationship with upper management, he drew controversy for using the team's practice facility to stream his religious preachings. Oftentimes, those preachings contained Biblical anti-gay messages.
"He had church in the facility on Wednesdays sometimes," Iguodala said. "He would stream his church service from the facility.
"He would just set up a computer in the facility, and he would just preach. And his congregation can watch and stream it. ... On the road, I don't know. I know at home he did. It would be like 7 o'clock at night, so nobody was in there."
With Jackson remaining quiet on the matter, he may never wind up coaching in the NBA again.
You can see Iguodala's comments in the video above beginning around the 29-minute mark.
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