Whenever Knicks legend Charles Oakley wants to see his old team at Madison Square Garden, he finds his tickets on StubHub. That’s because the team’s owner won’t even acknowledge his existence.
Oakley, regarded as the heart and soul of the Knicks during his 10-year run in New York, was at Times Square Knickerbocker Hotel Wednesday for a press conference for Zipway (a company belonging to his former teammate John Starks). During his time with the media, Oakley talked about his relationship with Knicks owner James Dolan.
Oakley told the media that Dolan ignored him when they were introduced at the NBA All-Star game last year. Oakley even went as far as asking commissioner Adam Silver to set up a meeting with Dolan.
“I asked the commissioner to set up a meeting with (Dolan), take a step forward,” Oakley said via Christian Red of the New York Daily News. “I want to know what I did to be hated so bad by an owner. The dad (Charles Dolan), I never heard him say nothing bad about me. I asked players I played with to go talk with (James Dolan). He said he don’t want to deal with me.”
Why might Dolan be upset with Oakley?
“He said (that) I said something in the paper 15 years ago,” Oakley told WFAN’s Boomer & Carton. “I even asked the commissioner to set up a meeting. I said we’ll get all the articles. I said, ‘What have I said?’ … I’ll come on the air and clear it up.”
This is not the first time we have heard Oakley complain about his relationship with his former team; in 2012, he whined about being unable to get a job with the franchise.
There are two sides to every story, so we would be curious to hear Dolan’s reasoning. Regardless, this is a bad look for Dolan, who is already in one mess this week after berating a long-time fan via email. Plus, fans are steaming over the Knicks’ league-worst 10-43 record this season. After this mess, there might be a lot of cheap tickets on StubHub for Oakley, or anyone else, to buy.
