NEW YORK — The Sweet 16 game between Kentucky and UCLA on Friday night in Memphis will feature five projected first-round NBA Draft picks, but Phil Jackson won’t be anywhere near the game.
The Knicks President attended the Shaq statue ceremony on Friday in Los Angeles instead of the Sweet 16 game in Memphis that features future pros like Kentucky’s De’Aaron Fox, Malik Monk and Bam Adebayo and UCLA’s Lonzo Ball and T.J. Leaf.
Jackson won five of his 11 NBA titles as coach of the Lakers.
Knicks President Steve Mills was expected at the Kentucky-UCLA game, per ESPN’s Ian Begley. The Knicks currently have the NBA’s sixth-worst record and will be in the mix for players like Fox, Monk and Leaf, though likely not Ball, a projected top-2 pick. DraftExpress.com has the Knicks taking N.C. State point guard Dennis Smith Jr., while other sites have alternative choices. Meantime, another former Lakers coach, Pat Riley of the Miami Heat, was working at Madison Square Garden for the Baylor-South Carolina game, likely to scout Baylor’s Johnathan Motley among others. Current Lakers President Magic Johnson made it to Memphis for the UCLA-Kentucky game.Shaquille O’Neal is joined on stage by Kobe Bryant, Phil Jackson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jeanie Buss and Lee Zeidman. pic.twitter.com/5FB12tQXSS
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) March 24, 2017
Phil realizing that maybe it wasn’t the triangle pic.twitter.com/yJZ0VpqsRj
— Stefan Bondy (@SBondyNYDN) March 25, 2017
