Mama, there goes that coach! Bucks to interview Mark Jackson
Mark Jackson has been keeping busy during the NBA playoffs, and not just as a broadcaster.
Jackson has been announcing games for ABC and ESPN since his dismissal as Golden State Warriors coach during the 2014 playoffs. Since then, he's had to work his old team's games in five straight NBA Finals, and six total in nine years.
He occasionally let his jealousy show, once responding to Jeff Van Gundy's praise of Warriors coach Steve Kerr by saying, "You cannot disrespect the caterpillar and rave about the butterfly."
When Jackson took over the Warriors in 2011, he took them to the playoffs in 2013 and 2014, while getting the Warriors to play defense for seemingly the first time since the 1980s. But his tenure was also filled with controversy and strangeness.
In 2012, Jackson went to the FBI after a stripper attempted to extort money from the coach years after the two had an extramarital affair. At his church, Jackson once anointed Steph Curry's injured ankle with holy oil. Jackson fired assistant coach Darren Erman for secretly recording conversations, where Erman was reportedly worried that the coaches were bad-mouthing him. He also allegedly made Festus Ezeli cry after falsely telling his teammates that Ezeli was cheering against them while he was injured.
But the most troubling allegations came when Jason Collins came out as gay in 2013. Jackson publicly said he was "praying for" Collins' family. But privately, he's alleged to have used homophobic slurs.
Jackson hasn't coached since 2014, though he was a finalist for the Sacramento Kings job last summer.
The controversies might still be dogging Jackson, but the worst indictment of his head coaching performance may be that the Warriors immediately won 67 games and an NBA title after firing him, with the only real roster changes being the additions of Shaun Livingston and Leandro Barbosa.
Still, there's one area where Jackson could certainly help the Bucks. Milwaukee let Miami shoot 45 percent from three-point range in their first-round loss this year. That means the Bucks didn't have their hands up enough. And as every Jackson viewer knows well, "Hand down" means "Man down."
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