Stephen Jackson says young players shouldn’t listen to Byron Scott
The 2000-01 New Jersey Nets, as with most New Jersey Net teams, were a motley crew.
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Stephon Marbury, in his first full season running the franchise show, was an All-Star but the team still ended up missing the playoffs even in a terrible Eastern Conference. Top NBA draft pick Kenyon Martin was drafted with a broken leg, and he finished the season nursing yet another broken leg. Keith Van Horn was mostly injured. Johnny Newman was, at times, the team’s most scintillating player. Rookie coach Byron Scott manned the show, in the days before Jason Kidd was dealt to East Rutherford in order to make a winner out of this perpetually awful franchise.
Working through all of that was rookie Stephen Jackson. The 22-year old was drafted out of high school by the Phoenix Suns in 1997, but needed three more years of overseas seasoning to get his first crack at the NBA. He started 40 of 77 games, but clearly had a contentious relationship with Scott.
Mindful of such, 120 Sports decided to have Jackson on to discuss his lone year with Byron Scott:
For those that cannot play this at work, Dan Feldman at Pro Basketball Talk was kind enough to transcribe Jackson’s lament:
“D’Angelo Russell and Randle, do not pay attention to Byron Scott. I made the Rookie All-Star Game at the end of the break, and after the break, he did not play me no more. He is the worst communicator for young guys. I would not advise a young player to even listen to Byron Scott, because he is the worst coach at communicating with young guys, and I’m living proof.”
It’s very much true that Jackson was jerked in and out of the rotation as 2000-01 went along. He was taken out of the starting lineup prior to the All-Star break and his inclusion in the Rookie/Sophomore Game – representing one of the worst rookie classes (if not the worst) in NBA history, and to an outsider Scott had his reasons.
Jackson, as was the case as both a rookie and a 14-year veteran last season, had a terrible shot selection. His defense was hit or miss, and NBA.com’s Lang Whitaker (then working for SLAM Magazine) reported that he had to talk the 22-year old out of eating popcorn as a proper pregame meal while covering a Nets contest. It was somewhat understandable for a 1980s-type like Scott (even in his rookie year as a coach) to take a distaste to Jackson’s ways.
Stephen Jackson would go on to play for seven more NBA teams, one of them (San Antonio, weirdly) twice. It’s not as if he was a beloved figure amongst the NBA landscape. And for an NBA head coach, a player making the NBA’s Rookie/Sophomore Game (in a season that saw Marc Jackson lead the polls as top Rookie of the Year candidate for much of the season) is not exactly an honor worth kowtowing to.
On top of that, and this was exacerbated by Kenyon Martin’s late-March leg fracture, the team was clearly tanking as the season dragged along (and it did drag). The 2001 NBA draft was supposed to be a loaded one, with preps-to-pros prospects merging with international stars and tried and true NCAA types to build a fearsome lottery outfit. The more losses the better, so why not give the games a little more Lucious Harris?
That, in effect, might be all you need to know about Byron Scott. That he limited Stephen Jackson’s minutes in favor of more cerebral, veteran players may have cost his franchise a shot at a high end lottery prize. General manager Rod Thorn did well to trade down and secure Richard Jefferson, Jason Collins and (with his own pick) Brian Scalabrine in the 2001 draft. A week later he dealt Marbury for Jason Kidd, and Jim McIlvaine, Kerry Kittles, and Kenyon Martin returned in full health for what turned into a Finals run in 2001-02. Scott looked great!
He does not, in a 2015-16 season that sees him attempting to play pathetic mindgames with the youngsters he’s charged with developing, look so good right now. Were he behind any other team besides the ennui-laden, Kobe-worshiping Los Angeles Lakers, Scott would be out of a gig right now. Relegated to local television analysis, where he can offer the sort banal, Tuff Dude sort of stylings that sound good in snippets but rarely work out in reality.
Scott failing to get through to Stephen Jackson will hardly count as a basketball crime of the highest order, but Jackson’s recollections aren’t without merit. Luckily these young Lakers seem self-aware enough to understand that they won’t have to deal with this stuff for long.
Here’s hoping, free from responsibility in 2016-17, Byron Scott and Stephen Jackson decide to open a hotel together. Never talk about the war.
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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
