KNICKS & $CRAPES
Hell hath no fury like James Dolan scorned.
The controversial New York Knicks owner is pouring cash into the effort to help Republican Congressional candidate Nicole Malliotakis beat incumbent Democratic Staten Island Rep. Max Rose — all because Rose recently trashtalked his management of the perennially-losing NBA team.
“Max Rose thinks he can make our team and my ownership his political platform,” Dolan wrote in an e-mail to friends obtained by The Post. “I need to let him know that we will not stand for this. The best way to do this is to help his opponent. He is in a tight race for the US Congress in Staten Island. . . . Please join me in helping Nicole defeat Max Rose for Congress.
“It will help send a strong message to all NY politicians that the Knicks will not be their political ticket to reelection. The most you can donate is $2,800,” Dolan wrote in the Web blast, whose recipients included other NBA owners and came with a fundraising link with the initials “JD.”
“I cannot do this alone due to the limit on campaign contributions,” he said. But he sure is trying.
A $50,000 check from MSG Sports was cut Tuesday to “The Governing Majority Fund,” a PAC run by former GOP Reps. John Faso and Jeff Denham, Dolan confirmed. The PAC’s mission is to help Republicans take back the House.
“Faso said Dolan got pissed off at Max Rose because he said something about the Knicks being a s--ty team and then Dolan turned around and wrote a $50,000 check to his PAC,” a source close to Faso told The Post.
The imbroglio began after Rose complained to TMZ that the billionaire was “driving the team into the ground.”
“I’m a Knicks fan to the day I die, but Dolan’s gotta sell,” Rose said. “Right now, this is an absolute disgrace . . . Every year that they don’t make the playoffs,
New York City loses out. We lose a piece of our soul. Sell tomorrow. Sell today. Do it for the good of all of us, brother!” In an interview with The Post, the famously thin-skinned Dolan said the Staten Island race wasn’t on his radar before the dustup, and that it was inappropriate for a sitting congressman to politicize the team. “It’s not like we’re unaware that fans are unhappy with the Knicks performance,” Dolan said. It’s “very disrespectful to his own constituents that they would think that this is something that would help them make up their mind about who should represent them in Congress,” he said. Dolan said New Yorkers should expect to see him become more politically active in the future, as Madison Square Garden, which he also owns, “hemorrhages”
money as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown.
“I think we’re going to start taking more aggressive positions, particularly in New York politics,” he said. “New York is really a oneparty city . . . I don’t think that’s healthy democracy. I think that you will see us be very pro-twoparty democracy and do more to help balance the scales.”
Dolan has already given this cycle, maxing out to upstate Rep. Elise Stefanik in February, FEC reports show.
He added that Rose was dreaming if he thought he had any intention of abandoning the Knicks.
“I have absolutely no plans to sell the team,” he said.
Reps for Malliotakis, who ran for mayor in 2017 and is currently a state assemblywoman from Staten Island, directed inquiries to Dolan.
But Rose was undaunted by the sports CEO’s electioneering.
“Glad to see James Dolan is taking his talents to boost Nicole’s campaign. God knows he’s got the Midas touch,” he snarked. “Never forget the Eddy Curry trade!
“Proud to say that I don’t take money from Corporate PACs, federal lobbyists, or worst of all — James Dolan.”