New York Knicks

Phil Jackson's friend and interviewer, Charley Rosen, keeps talking about butts

Published Aug. 3, 2015 2:06 p.m. ET

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ESPN has been promoting "The Phil Files," a series written by former Jackson assistant Charley Rosen after Rosen had a series of conversations with the Knicks' president of basketball operations earlier in the year.

The pieces are delayed, from closer to the new year than to now, but they do offer some occasional insight. The latest one, though, brought us back to butts.

Yes, you heard me: butts.

In a March report from the New York Post, Marc Berman wrote that Rosen thought the Knicks needed a bigger butt than Karl-Anthony Towns'. That's not code. We're talking about butts.

Here's what Berman wrote:

Rosen reserved judgment on Duke center Jahlil Okafor because he said he hasn’t seen him much, but is skeptical about Towns, despite carrying Kentucky with post buckets late in its last-second win over Notre Dame Saturday.

“They need a center with a big butt to hold space,’’ Rosen told The Post. “They didn’t have anybody like that. It takes away a major portion of what you can do with the triangle because then it really becomes just a perimeter offense.’

Now, Rosen is back on the derrieres. Here's what he wrote in Monday's Phil File:

While Jackson admits that Shane Larkin's play has improved, he's still unhappy with one critical aspect of the smaller guard's game: feeding the pivot. All of Jackson's championship teams featured a center who could use his big butt to establish and maintain low-post position. But Smith, Bargnani and Lou Amundson, lacking the same posterior mass, are obliged to use their arms and elbows to seal off their defenders.

Stuff's getting weird. Also, someone should tell Rosen that Kristaps Porzingis is built like a pencil, totally buttless.

(h/t ESPN)