Momma, There Goes That Man

Dear Coach Jackson,

I always felt respectful indifference towards you as a player (except for some mild curiosity about your free throw routine), but after you teamed up with Van Gundy in the announcing booth a few years ago, I started feeling real affection for both of you guys, the same kind of affection I felt for, say, Coach Taylor and Buddy Garrity in Friday Night Lights. The network you worked for, ABC/ESPN, produces the single most boring halftime show in the history of televised sports, but listening to you and JVG (and Mike Breen) during games was truly a pleasure. I mean that. When you guys were announcing together, I enjoyed blowouts nearly as much as close games, because Van Gundy would go off script even more than usual and start talking about the Royal Wedding or something, and then you'd respond with feigned incredulity and exaggerated disapproval to whatever he said. It was great. (It's always fun--and moving--to watch two characters on TV hide their affection for each other underneath gruff exteriors. When one of them finally shows their true feelings, if only for a brief moment, it's hard not to get a little teary, there on your couch). Jeff Van Gundy's a smart and hilarious dude--something I didn't fully realize when he was moping around Houston as our coach, with bags under his eyes from watching too much tape--and you were his perfect straight man. You guys were much better than any Buddy Cop movie combo of the past decade; I'd much rather watch you two than the guys in Cop Out or that movie with Samuel L. and the dad from American Pie, which didn't even seem like a real movie, or even the combo in The Other Guys. (And I'm sure you're like me, Mark, and you pretended to like The Other Guys as you left the theater, so you wouldn't hurt anybody's feelings or feel like you wasted ten bucks, but cards on the table: that movie wasn't funny.) The point is, I loved the dynamic between you two, loved for instance that one time during a Suns game when Van Gundy started talking about how he'd gone to Spring Training that week with his parents and how his mom and dad had been kind enough to pay for his hotel room and you said, "You let your parents pay for your hotel room? You're a grown man." I also loved the tone you used every time you addressed Van Gundy as "Coach," the real respect and history in your voice, a tone similar to the one I expect President Obama's former body man (and former Duke basketball player) Reggie Love will use whenever he says "Mr. President" many years from now, as they play golf. I also loved that whenever you made an astute basketball observation, Van Gundy would say, "Somebody give this man a head coaching job!" Watching at home, we could sense that you really did want a coaching job, and that Van Gundy was sincere in promoting you. Which is why I was excited in June when you got the Golden State job (even though you've never coached at any level) and why I'll be cheering for you this season. We've grown to know and love you and Van Gundy. I'll be rooting for you to surmount any obstacles in your path during this new spin-off with the Warriors.

With that in mind, let me suggest a few things.