Phil Jackson attempts, and fails, to explain why he totally meant to say ‘goink’
You might recall, with those legendary 2014-15 Chicago Bulls, Memphis Grizzlies, and Washington Wizards teams owning 2-1 leads in the second round of the playoffs in May, Phil Jackson’s attempt to dance on the grave of the fad known as the “three-pointer.”
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Well, it turns out that rock and roll is here to stay. The Warriors went on to win the NBA championship by happily skipping around the free throw line, and the Cavaliers failed to give us a Finals for the ages mainly because three-point killers Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love were sadly out for all but 44 minutes (all Irving’s) of the Finals. All while Jackson ducked his way out of representing the Knicks as they fell from what should have been the second overall pick to No. 4 in the draft lottery.
Mindful of some need for some nice public relations work, Jackson and the Knicks did Jackson and Knicks-y things in talking with the New York Times recently. The Knicks president, because you knew this was coming, even had a series of weird ready-made excuses about the three-point diss, and the odd send-off that ended his tweet:
Q. In the middle of the playoffs, you took to Twitter to ask N.B.A. analysts to give you “some diagnostics” on how 3-point-oriented teams were faring. It struck most as a criticism of teams like the Warriors who take a lot of 3-point shots. You asked, “How’s it goink?” What was that about?
JACKSON: They have all these analysts. I just wanted to see someone come back to me with statistics: Is 3-point shooting in the playoffs as consistent as it is in the regular season? Does your 3-point-shooting percentage change because you’re in the playoffs? No one figured that one out. And that’s probably me being obtuse to leave it open at the end. But “goink” is one of those New York expressions that we use, and I will tell you this: I learned something. Someone sent me the fact that if you look it up on Urban Dictionary, you’ll find out what it means in today’s society.
Q. Should I look?
JACKSON: Well, it’s rather bizarre to say the least.
Q. So it wasn’t just a typo?
JACKSON: “Goink” is a castoff expression, right? Instead of, “How’s it going?,” it’s, “How’s it goink?” It turned out to be either a combination of a mixed ethnic group: part Korean, part Chinese. Or it’s a vernacular term for how do you deal with a sexual partner.
Jackson’s Urban Dictionary re-telling is correct, and I’ll let you head over to that page in order to follow-through on your research if you’re so inclined. It’s also worth noting that Jackson’s personal reflection on the second term, describing it as something you do to “deal with a sexual partner,” might be rather telling as you try to glean details about Jackson’s personal proclivities, his views on women, or both.
I’m hardly the one to ask when it comes to discussing New York colloquialisms, because outside of reading Steely Dan interviews and a brief obsession with early 1970s New York City/Robert Downey Sr.-cinema, I’m the outsider looking in.
Brooklyn-raised Dan Devine, however, is allowed to chime in.
Jackson went on to say that he didn’t mean to use the Urban Dictionary versions of the “word” in his interview, but he would not back down from the idea that his granddad fingers (in a bit of “I told you kids, see?!?!?”-glee) may have accidentally hit the “k” a half-second after sliding up from that “n.”
We all screw up, in texts and Twitter. The most popular tweet I ever sent out featured a misspelling. I’ll cop to that, though, because I was venting after a bad day while on my Blackberry, and on my second Jameson of the night. We all make typos, and it’s OK to admit as much.
That’s what separates Phil Jackson from younger types and especially all the other 69-year olds you might know that slip things up when attempting to send out a text or – heaven forbid – a tweet:
Phil Jackson just finished the first year of a five-year, $60 million contract, and presided over the worst New York Knick team in history. He thinks he’s entitled enough – and the baby boomer stuff doesn’t hurt – to pretend that he knew what he was doing all along.
It becomes clear, if you read the interview, what Jackson is doing. The man might give New York a winner someday, but right now he’s gliding with the money in hand. We like that, because Jackson is stealing from the execrable James Dolan, but he’s also wasting the time of New York Knick fans.
In the same interview, Jackson pointed out that Knicks general manager Steve Mills handles most calls with other teams, as New York attempts to figure out how to rebuild around the fourth overall pick in the 2015 draft, cap space that top free agents probably won’t want to take, and a 31-year old star who limped through most of 2014-15.
Jackson told the Times that he didn’t head to the NBA lottery proceedings because he views Mills “as the future of this franchise,” though Mills (save for a 2009-2013 respite) has been with the team since 2003. Read his commitment like this: Jackson and the Knicks have money to burn, and Jackson’s deputy Clarence Gaines Jr. is a brilliant basketball mind, but they have one of the more skinflint scouting and personnel staffs in the NBA. Analytics? Never heard of ‘em.
Actually, heard of ‘em, don’t like ‘em. Haven’t actually read ‘em, don’t like ‘em. His contract runs until 2019.
The whole thing is funny until you start to think of the entitlement that leads to weird and completely made-up defenses like these (FOR A TYPO!). We’re a long, long way away from the Phil Jackson that coached in the Puerto Rican leagues, just trying to learn more about the game we all love.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
