Knicks are true leaders in dysfunction
For so much of the current reign of New York Knicks dysfunction, the public images of embarrassment have been largely limited to the befuddled face of team President Phil Jackson or to screen shots of Jackson’s bizarre Twitter musings, an obsession with taking shots at his team’s best player a constant reminder of how far a once-great franchise has fallen.
And yet the Knicks found a new image of ugliness Wednesday, one that managed to make Jackson look reasonable. Score another low point for owner James Dolan, the man who makes truth of the cliché about being born on third base and believing you’d hit a triple.
Yes, the team that can’t do anything right managed to let something go horribly wrong, again, and in ejecting former player Charles Oakley during the first quarter of Wednesday’s loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, in having Oakley handcuffed and arrested and taken into police custody, in opening a public door on what has been an ongoing private dispute with the fan-favorite big man, all the Knicks did was hand us a new picture of pettiness to supersede all that has gone before. And this one represents everything we need to know about why this organization is so poorly run.
Just listening to Oakley on Thursday — he did an afternoon interview on ESPN Radio — revealed so many layers of Dolan’s ugly behavior, from the fact that Oakley has to purchase tickets to attend a game, to the idea Dolan has made it clear he expects to be informed any time that happens, to Oakley describing how security follows him on visits to the bathroom all the way to his claim that he has tried for years to sit down with Dolan to hash out their problems, to no avail.
“I’m not going to argue with Dolan. I have no beef,” Oakley said on The Stephen A. Smith Show.
“I’ve been trying to sit down for years to find out what did I do to make him dislike me. All I did was play hard for the organization. He may not like me, but I bought my ticket to get in. They used to give me tickets like 10 years ago. They stopped that.
“I feel sorry for the fans. ... I don’t know why it’s so touchy when I come in The Garden. The fans love me.”
Yes they do. Giving your body and soul for 10 years on the court, being part of those great Knicks teams of the 1990s, working hard alongside Patrick Ewing and John Starks and Allan Houston and Larry Johnson, being part of the last sustained era of success these fans can remember will endear you that way.
How could anyone possibly have any faith in what the Knicks are doing now? The franchise is a national joke. Dolan has made too many public gaffes to bother recounting here. But the fingerprints he so obviously laid all over the public statement Knicks PR staff issued after Oakley’s ejection might be his worst example yet of smug, mean-spirited condescension.
“Charles Oakley came to the game tonight and behaved in a highly inappropriate and completely abusive manner,” the statement read. “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.”
THEY hope HE gets help? Please. The Knicks are the ones in need of help.
Listen, Oakley was wrong for putting his hands on MSG security personnel, but the situation had escalated far beyond propriety by that point anyway. If you believe his account of the story — and at this point, who would ever believe a Knicks version of events over anyone else’s? — this feud began once Oakley took his courtside seat. The owner made sure he was escorted out of it Wednesday, watching from afar as Oakley shouted with security, doing nothing as the scene dissolved into chaos, as famous courtsiders including John McEnroe and Chris Rock watched, mouths agape, as Oakley ended up on the ground, corralled by up to a half-dozen security members, as fans began chanting his name in support, even as his designated lieutenant Jackson made a fruitless attempt to be peacemaker.
Jackson could do nothing. No surprise there. Perhaps he’ll retreat to his keyboard and take another shot at Carmelo Anthony instead, try to divert attention away from the latest ridiculous- ness to engulf this once-proud uniform. That’s what these Knicks are about now, where a team president denigrates his best current player and the team owner embarrasses one of its best former ones. Jackson was supposed to be the answer to this mess, was supposed to take the full, unimpeded control granted him by Dolan and fix the mistakes of rosters past, supposed to use the alchemy of 13 championship rings earned as a player, coach or executive and dust that magic in New York.
Instead, the Knicks continue to flounder, losing 19 of their last 25 games. We’ve watched in stunned disbelief as the complicated personality that is Anthony morphed into the people’s champ, so easy to root for in a cage match with Jackson. We’ve watched Derrick Rose, the man Jackson thought could solve the offensive problems, desert his team for a night and pay no consequence. We’ve watched Joakim Noah, the man Jackson believed could energize a dormant defense, get old before our eyes. We’ve watched the lone bright spot, Kristaps Porzingis, unable to flourish with the wrong cast around him. We’ve watched a square-peg coach Jeff Hornacek do his best to fit into Jackson’s triangle-shaped world, only to learn the hard lessons in what life can be like under this regime.
Jackson will forever be the face of the current reign of Knicks futility. But leave it to this franchise to give us a new picture of ugliness to go along with it. Shame on them.