Silver must hold Dolan accountable
Former New York Knicks forward Charles Oakley was kicked out of Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night and charged with three counts of misdemeanor assault and one count of criminal trespass when he got into a confrontation with security guards who asked him to leave during a game with the Los Angeles Clippers. Oakley maintains he did nothing wrong and that security asked him to leave without any warning. The Knicks said Oakley, who was sitting several rows behind Knicks owner James Dolan, was causing trouble before security reached his seat.
While Oakley is banned from Madison Square Garden and faces an upcoming court date, Ben Golliver of SI.com asks where NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is and what his priorities are.
“Adam Silver, on the other hand, is much better than this,” Golliver wrote. “On the commissioner’s watch, the NBA has reached labor peace with its players, booted out the disgraceful former Clippers owner Donald Sterling, disciplined Rajon Rondo for homophobic comments towards an official, and taken a strong stand for equality by relocating next week’s All-Star Game out of North Carolina due to the state’s ‘Bathroom Bill.’
“But so far this week, the commissioner has fiddled while Manhattan has burned. Silver attended the Knicks-Clippers game on Wednesday, so he had a first-hand view on how Oakley was removed from the building and how the episode disrupted play. Theoretically, his attendance also gave him a jumpstart on handling the inevitable fallout.
“Who better embodies harmonic relations between the NBA executives and the league’s players than Silver? Shouldn’t the league’s chief executive, more than anyone else, want the focus to remain on the court—where Carmelo Anthony and Blake Griffin were going head-to-head — rather on the sidelines where security was hauling a former player out of The World’s Most Famous Arena?
“Want to talk about a bad look? Earlier this week, the NBA issued a memo to its teams warning against inappropriate Twitter posts that ‘can damage the reputation of the NBA.’
“On Friday, the league office suspended Suns center Alex Len and fined three players for their roles in a shoving match that was roughly 25 percent as rough as Oakley’s encounter with security. Right now, Silver and company look like cops handing out parking tickets and issuing warnings to jaywalkers as the bank gets robbed across the street.”
According to Golliver, it’s time for Silver to step up and bring Dolan “into line with the league’s values and expectations.”