New York Daily News

Why Dolan-Oakley feud needs to end:

Dolan should apologize, & Oakley should accept

- FRANK ISOLA

Beyoncé’s acceptance speech at the Grammys lasted longer than Charles Oakley’s MSG ban. So either Michael Jordan is the Henry Kissinger of basketball or it finally dawned on the powers that rule Madison Square Garden that waging a public relations war with a beloved player and facing the wrath of civil rights groups isn’t in their best interests.

Go with the latter because if you think James Dolan drops a grudge after four days like he’s discarding a guitar pick, ask yourself this: Why did it take him 14 years to reconcile with Latrell Sprewell?

Dolan made a smart play in the wake of his moronic radio appearance with ESPN’s Michael Kay last Friday when the MSG Chairman insinuated that Oakley is an alcoholic and issued an indefinite ban on Oakley entering his building. (Considerin­g the state of the Knicks, that could be viewed as a kind gesture.) But with Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and Rev. Al Sharpton threatenin­g to stage protests outside of the Garden until the ban was lifted, Dolan was forced to backpedal faster than Josh Norman covering Odell Beckham Jr.

From my dealings with and observatio­ns of Dolan for nearly 20 years, I can say that he is a lot of things − stubborn, a bully, unreasonab­le − but I never thought of him as being racist. At one point, three of his highest ranking officials with the Knicks were African American: Isiah Thomas, Steve Mills and Anucha Browne Sanders.

Sure, the optics from last Wednesday were not good — mostly white security guards wrestling a black man to the ground. That was Dolan being a bully.

The same security harassing Oakley has followed me around the Garden. Years ago, I felt like Robert De Niro’s character in “Goodfellas,” who famously walks out of a Brooklyn diner in the middle of the night to tell the sleeping FBI guys to wake up because

he’s leaving. As I spoke to a player agent, I stopped in mid-sentence and told two guards “give me a couple of minutes and then we’ll head to the press room.”

This is the madness of the Garden. Too often it’s not about basketball. It’s about grudges, petty feuds and winning public relations battles. Oakley is just one of the more famous targets.

It’s wasted energy and it forced NBA Commission­er Adam Silver, who has better things to do than mediate this petty fight, to get involved. And with Jordan lending his name to the negotiatio­ns, Dolan and Oakley reached an understand­ing. Sort of.

Oakley was taking a late afternoon nap while the NBA was releasing a statement from Silver announcing that Dolan and Oakley were good. Sort of.

By early Tuesday morning, ESPN was reporting that the ban had been lifted, but Oakley had other ideas. When I spoke with him at 10 a.m., Oakley revealed that he crossed paths at LaGuardia Airport with Sprewell, the suddenly reformed outcast who attended the Knicks’ annual charity bowling event on Monday. (Yes, that’s the same event Sprewell annually blew off, much to Dolan’s chagrin.) Oakley did not speak with Sprewell at the airport, but he did address the fallout from Monday. Ban or no ban, Oakley only asked that Dolan make a public apology for calling him a drunk.

“That hurt,” Oakley told me. “It’s a label that sticks with you. You call someone a sex offender, that’s never going away. Same with being called a drunk.”

An apology sounds reasonable enough. And Oakley should also apologize for insulting Dolan in the past.

The NBA wants this nonsense settled immediatel­y so it doesn’t invade this weekend’s All-Star festivitie­s in New Orleans. Can’t blame them for that.

Dolan needs to be the bigger man here and do what is right. And Oakley, who finally got that meeting with Dolan that he’s wanted for years, should accept it and move on.

The fans love Oakley. That will never change. That’s why Dolan was always fighting a losing battle here.

Now, just play for a tie. Both of them.

 ?? NEWS, AP AND GETTY ?? The public war between Knick great Charles Oakley (far r.) and owner Jim Dolan, shown with Latrell Sprewell on Sunday after 14-year exile, that spilled on to the front and back pages of the Daily News after Dolan had Oak ejected from Knicks game last...
NEWS, AP AND GETTY The public war between Knick great Charles Oakley (far r.) and owner Jim Dolan, shown with Latrell Sprewell on Sunday after 14-year exile, that spilled on to the front and back pages of the Daily News after Dolan had Oak ejected from Knicks game last...
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