It’s a perfectly reasonable position to take — especially when you’re a columnist paid to write about the NBA for a living.

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What shouldn’t happen is for the president of the team to disparage his own player:

Because it’s Jackson, the Zen Master, a man who always speaks in riddles, this at first left just about everyone confused. What was Phil up to this time?

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But, after a moment’s reflection, it quickly became apparent: Phil was agreeing with Ding’s premise publicly, only perhaps adding to it by saying he never expected Anthony to change in the first place.

What a way to run a franchise!

The Knicks, who suffered their previous latest embarrassment Monday night when they were blown out by the visiting Lakers, remain a completely mismanaged, dysfunctional mess. Much of the blame for that comes from Jackson himself. He’s now on his fourth coach in less than three full years on the job. He gave away Tyson Chandler, helped turn the Cleveland Cavaliers into a championship-level team by sending them J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert, and spent like mad last summer to try to rush the Knicks back into contention.

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Jackson’s defenders — at least those who remain — will point to the fact he drafted rising star Kristaps Porzingis and say that nothing else matters that he’s done.

Here’s the problem with that: Jackson spent millions last summer to try to build a winning team right now, including signing Joakim Noah to the worst contract in the NBA at the moment, a four-year, $72 million deal that The Washington Post reported was going to happen before free agency started because it was clear no one else was going to outbid the Knicks for an aging center playing on one knee and coming off season-ending shoulder surgery.

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Then, not even halfway through this season, Jackson was making it clear to anyone and everyone that he’d love to send Anthony packing — the same player he needlessly gave a no-trade clause to when re-signing him in 2014, leaving the Knicks with virtually no bargaining power in any trade conversations involving their star moving forward. That’s why there is at least a chance the Knicks could trade Anthony to the Los Angeles Clippers for a possible combination of Austin Rivers, Jamal Crawford and Wesley Johnson, with perhaps the third name looking different.

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What Knicks fans can be assured of is it won’t be a trade for Chris Paul, Blake Griffin or DeAndre Jordan. And, whether LeBron James wants it or not, it seems hard to see how the Cavaliers will send Kevin Love to the Knicks for Anthony when he’s several years older and Love is already an integral part of the Eastern Conference’s best team by a mile.

Plus, there’s this to consider: What if the Knicks are unable to find a suitable trade partner for Anthony between now and the deadline? What if he’s on the team for the rest of this season, and beyond? By repeatedly taking shots at him publicly, it’s hard to see how Jackson is supposed to engender Anthony’s support as a member of his franchise.

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For all of Jackson’s backbiting, for all of the potshots he has taken at Anthony, there’s something Jackson can’t avoid: Every day, Anthony shows up for work and does his job — and has proven willing to play through injury on several occasions to do so.

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Is he Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant? No. But he is a Hall of Fame player who, despite playing in the country’s biggest media market for a franchise that often resembles a circus rather than an NBA team, is always ready to stand up and answer questions about what has happened with the team that night, or about any of the other silliness that has recently come to surround himself and the Knicks in recent weeks.

Jackson, meanwhile, continues to send out cryptic tweets, or give occasional one-on-one interviews that create even more controversy, like when he referred to the people around James and his successful off-the-court empire as a “posse” in a follow-up interview with CBS Sports Network in which he took another shot at Anthony. When Derrick Rose disappeared without a trace before a game, Jackson left his coach, Jeff Hornacek, and his players to explain what was happening, and left Madison Square Garden without a word.

Through it all, Jackson has felt it unnecessary to address publicly what’s happening around him, content to be Nero playing the fiddle as Rome burns to the ground — only, in this instance, the fiddle is his phone, and instead of playing music, he’s tapping out his latest witty tweet about the face of his franchise.