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'Posse' cut: Jay Z throws jab at Phil while introducing LeBron at SI gala

Dan Devine
Senior NBA writer
Jay Z speaks onstage during the Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year Ceremony 2016 at Barclays Center of Brooklyn on Dec. 12, 2016. (Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for Sports Illustrated)
Jay Z speaks onstage during the Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year Ceremony 2016 at Barclays Center of Brooklyn on Dec. 12, 2016. (Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for Sports Illustrated)

When news first circulated that Phil Jackson had referred to LeBron James’ friends and associates as his “posse” during an interview with ESPN last month, James’ longtime pal and business partner Maverick Carter decided to express his displeasure with what he and others felt was disrespectful diction by reaching back to a line from a 2010 Jay Z track titled “Most Kingz”:

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When it was time to introduce the Cleveland Cavaliers superstar at a gala event at Barclays Center where he would receive Sports Illustrated’s 2016 Sportsperson of the Year award, the Brooklyn hip-hop legend and former part-owner of the Brooklyn Nets once again entered the fold. Given the mic and the opportunity, Jay — who, as you might remember, has been part of the King’s court for more than a decade now — decided to lick off a quick shot in the direction of the New York Knicks’ president of basketball operations:

“[James is] a dedicated family man who married his high school sweetheart, Savannah,” Jay Z said. “He has three lovely children. He’s the son who honors and worships his mother, Gloria. The friend who put his ‘posse’ in position.”

As the New York crowd offered a brief laugh of recognition, Jay continued.

“I know. We know where we come from. We do understand where we come from,” he said. “The only difference between us and someone who has their MBA from Wharton or Sloan or Berkeley or Stanford is opportunity. LeBron James has provided his friends with that opportunity, and as we’ve witnessed their development, and if we’re looking up at the scoreboard, very few — very few — businessmen are better than Maverick Carter, Rich Paul, Randy Mims and all the rest of the posse behind the scenes that make it look like they’re just hanging out.”

Jackson used the word “posse” to describe James’ friends and associates while relating a story about James’ time with, and decision to leave, the Miami Heat during a chat with ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan:

It had to hurt when [the Heat] lost LeBron. That was definitely a slap in the face. But there were a lot of little things that came out of that. When LeBron was playing with the Heat, they went to Cleveland and he wanted to spend the night. They don’t do overnights. Teams just don’t. So now (coach Erik) Spoelstra has to text Riley and say, ‘What do I do in this situation?’ And [team president] Pat [Riley], who has iron-fist rules, answers, ‘You are on the plane, you are with this team.’ You can’t hold up the whole team because you and your mom and your posse want to spend an extra night in Cleveland.

I always thought Pat had this really nice vibe with his guys. But something happened there where it broke down. I do know LeBron likes special treatment. He needs things his way.

Carter — now the CEO of Uninterrupted, a digital platform for first-person athlete stories he and James created with Bleacher Report, and the negotiator of the lifetime contract with Nike that could reportedly pay James upward of $1 billion — took offense at that characterization, and explained his reaction to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin:

“I don’t care that he talks about LeBron,” Maverick Carter told ESPN.com. “He could say he’s not that good or the greatest in the world as a basketball player. I wouldn’t care. It’s the word ‘posse’ and the characterization I take offense to. If he would have said LeBron and his agent, LeBron and his business partners or LeBron and his friends, that’s one thing. Yet because you’re young and black he can use that word. We’re grown men.”

James, too, took umbrage, saying he’d lost respect for Jackson after hearing his remarks, which he believed the legendary coach used only because James and his partners are black, according to Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com:

“I’ve been in the league for 14 years and from the beginning, two years in, I felt like I wanted to put my guys in positions of power, five of those guys an opportunity to better themselves and in the beginning we were highly criticized and I was highly criticized about what I wanted to do to help some guys around me become very successful in business,” James said. “It just sucks that now at this point having one of the biggest businesses you can have both on and off the floor, having a certified agent in Rich Paul, having a certified business partner in Maverick Carter, that’s done so many great business, that the title for young African-Americans is the word ‘posse.’”

“We see the success that we have but then there is always someone that lets you know still how far we still have to go as African-Americans and I don’t believe that Phil Jackson would have used that term if he was doing business with someone else and working with another team or if he was working with anybody in sports that was owning a team that wasn’t African-American and had a group of guys around them that didn’t agree with what they did, I don’t think he would have called them a posse.”

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Jackson mostly stayed mum after the matter grew into a controversy until last week, when he appeared on a CBS Sports Network show ahead of a meeting between the Cavs and Knicks. He said that while his “word choice could be something I could regret,” he only felt remorse for talking about another team’s player, which is “out of the box” and a violation of “the tenets of our thing.”

Neither Jackson nor James expressed interest in a face-to-face chat to hash things out. James preferred to let his game do the talking, putting up 25 points, seven rebounds and six assists in just three quarters of work as Cleveland destroyed New York in a game we’ll remember more for its water-bottle-flipping conclusion than any on-court drama.

If Jackson and James have put the issue to bed, then Jay’s remarks ought to constitute the last word on the matter. Fitting, since the first words issued in response to Phil’s first word came from Hov, too.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!