Phil Jackson isn't as far removed from the rap game as one might assume. After Kendrick Lamar name-dropped the former Los Angeles Lakers' coach in his "Control" verse ("If Phil Jackson come back, still no coaching me," he spit), Jackson tweeted the Compton rapper, "It’s okay to be cocky and sure, but we all need somebody to lean on. Let's just call it mentoring."

Those words of advice came at the prodding of Jackson's Twitter followers, the 68-year-old sports legend revealed to the Campus Insiders' Seth Davis, adding, "The connection between basketball and rap is so deep."

Jackson was relaxing at his home in Montana and just happened to be checking his mentions when "Control" dropped and caused a social media frenzy, he explained. "Many of the people that tweet back and forth to me were saying you gotta come back at Lamar," he said. "So I threw that [tweet] out there."

Jackson was among many rappers, rap fans, and even a rapping basketball player, who responded to Lamar checking J. Cole, Drake, Pusha T, Jay Electronica, and Wale among others. It's still the most talked about verse of the year.

Meanwhile, the Black Hippy spitter has run out of patience yapping about the record's impact. "I think I said everything I need to say on Peter Rosenberg, Hot 97," K.Dot says in the new issue of XXL magazine, which he covers alongside TDE affiliates Schoolboy Q, Jay Rock, and Ab-Soul.

"If people don't get it from there then I don't feel [I need] to explained myself anymore. You know, I just wrote a verse. I think everybody's just taking it to the ground and don't want to let it go. I spoke my piece on Hot 97. If people wanna take it further than there, that's their entertainment. I'm on a whole 'nother plateau of thinking now. That was just for that moment of writing a verse. That's how I feel about it." 

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(Photos from left: Jason Merritt / Getty Images for BET, Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Children's Hospital Los Angeles)