Phil Jackson and Shane Larkin have weird thing going about Larkin’s hands

Phil Jackson calling Andrea Bargnani a “big tease” drew the most attention, but Shane Larkin sure noticed what the Knicks president said about him a final-evaluation article with Charley Rosen of ESPN:

“His play did improve, but he’s still a long shot to be back with us. He’s incredibly quick but he doesn’t use his speed the way he should. Shane mainly wants to get his shot off a high screen-roll situation when he should be pushing the ball and getting his shots in an open floor. Another problem is that he can’t control the ball because he has such tiny hands. For sure, every team needs a small, quick guard, but there are a lot of guys like that available.”

Larkin signed with the Nets this summer, and the guard is doing his part to boost the fledgling New York-Brooklyn rivarly:

Devin Kharpertian of The Brooklyn Game:

Shane Larkin on Phil Jackson's comments: "I never met a man so concerned with another man's hands before."

— devin kharpertian (@uuords) September 28, 2015

Larkin’s hands are relatively small. At the pre-draft combine, his hands measured 7.5 inches long (tied for fourth-smallest in the DraftExpress database) and 8.75 inches wide.

But Michael Carter-Williams has smaller hands. It’s not a deal-breaker. For what it’s worth, Larkin showed the media he could palm a basketball.

Larkin has talent. I’m not sure whether he’ll develop into a reliable NBA rotation player, but he could – in spite of his hand size. If Jackson overly obsessed with it rather than merely viewing it as the minor weakness it is, that’s his mistake.

After Larkin’s comments, I’m curious how often Jackson brought it up before the Rosen interview.