With the New York Knicks continuing to find it more and more difficult to defeat opponents on the court, last night Madison Square Garden Security tried its hands at taking down former players instead.
In the rarest of incidents, the game between the Knicks and Los Angeles Clippers had to be paused as a bevy of security officials tried to remove former New York enforcer and beloved player, Charles Oakley from his seat a few rows away from their owner, Jim Dolan.
According to Knicks PR, “Charles Oakley came to the game tonight and behaved in a highly inappropriate and completely abusive manner. He has been ejected and is currently being arrested by the New York City Police Department. He was a great Knick and we hope he gets some help soon.”
The last sentence in particular is extremely petty and oozes of Knicks ownership.
For the record, Charles Oakley responded as follows, on late Wednesday night:
“I was there for four minutes. I didn’t say anything to him. I swear on my mother. They came over and wanted to know why I was sitting here. I bought the ticket. I said ‘Why do you guys keep staring at me?’ Then they asked me to leave. And I said ‘I’m not leaving.'”
According to Oakley, he has reached out on multiple occasions to seek to repair his relationship with Dolan, but has been rebuffed. He has also indicated that security personnel follow him around every time he comes to The Garden.
Sigh.
♦◊♦
A season which started with so much promise, including starting point guard Derrick Rose referring to this year’s squad as the Dream Team — note to all professional athletes, self proclaiming your team the Dream Team never works out in your favor — has reached its apex of embarrassment.
it is rare for a month to pass without a Knick faux pas followed by one of New York’s tabloids catchy pun-erific headlines.
It didn’t take long for word to travel about last night’s “incident.” For many reasons, the story has broad appeal. No one elicits more pride from Knick fans than “Oak.” He is the embodiment of every New Yorker’s self-reflection; tough, brash, successful, respected amongst pears. At the same time, Oakley is the symbol for what every non-New Yorker believes them to be; scary. His presence harkens back to the most recent “glory days” of New York Knicks lexicon.
The 90s Pat Riley-led Knicks weren’t the most talented team, typically offering up only one All-Star. It was their style of play that endeared the world, more specifically, the five boroughs. They brought municipal street ball to “The Mecca.”
The changed the game and bridged the 70s championship teams with the next generation of fans that still inhabit (sort of) MSG to this day.
This doesn’t have to end badly for either the Knicks or Oakley.
Maybe James Dolan can take a page out of Former ABA Flint Tropics owner/player Jackie Moon’s playbook and create mindless spectacles during pre-game and halftime to divert attention away from another dismal season.
He’s already tried to emasculate one beloved former player, why stop there?
Make Clyde Frazier wear a navy pinstripe suit instead of the beautiful walking pieces of art he cloaks his body with every day.
I’m sure he could convince former Democratic Presidential Candidate Bill Bradley to publicly support Donald Trump.
Or he can just stick with physical acts of violence and trot Oakley out every night and see how many security guards it takes to bring him down. (He might be the only current/former outside of Boogie Cousins who I would be afraid for my life if somehow, someway his anger was directed at me)
If all else fails, Dolan can always get his band JD & The Straight Shots to play. You can almost see the tabloid headline already, “Straight Shot to the Temple, Please.”
We might already be there.
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Photo Credit: Twitter
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