Apparently there is a growing list of former New York Knicks players who would love to work within the organization but have not been granted the opportunity. Like Patrick Ewing, Knicks legend Charles Oakley says he has been shut down numerous times while trying to earn a position with the team.
According to the NY Daily News, Oakley says he has “cried and tried” to get a job with the Knicks but believes he has not had any success because he is too critical of his former team.
“They say I’m hard on them,” Oakley said. “I say, I’m not hard on them; that’s just the way the game goes and people have opinions. Ex-players I talk to, they say, ‘Management, they like you. But sometimes it’s the way you say things, the way you do things.’
“…I feel I’m not going to let (Knicks fans) down because somebody else wants to say something else. … (Knicks owner James Dolan) shouldn’t be mad at me because all I did was come before him and play the hardest and the best I could do. I’m going to be a Knick for life, though, no matter what people say.”
Before the season began, the Knicks offered Ewing a job coaching in the D-League. He was reportedly insulted by the offer and turned it down, and Oakley says he would have done the same.
“That’s embarrassing,” he said. “How can you offer Patrick a D-League coaching job? I think it’s embarrassing. No matter what a person did to you or whatever over the years, his agent or somebody. That’s Kindergarten. This man has been the coach for 10 years and you’re going to offer him a Kindergarten job. Totally disrespectful. Then you’re going to hire a guy, LaSalle Thompson, that had nothing to do with the Knicks.”
Oakley’s comments seem to indicate he has given up on trying to get a job with the Knicks. Criticizing the team for holding a grudge against him and for offering Ewing the D-League job certainly isn’t going to score him any points.
