Draymond Green basically accused New York Knicks owner James Dolan of being a racist earlier this week, but the Golden State Warriors star is now backing off of those remarks.
On the second episode of his “Dray Day” podcast, Green said Dolan exhibited a “slave master mentality” by throwing Charles Oakley out of Madison Square Garden. On Thursday, Green told ESPN Radio’s Meet the All-Stars Show that his criticism of Dolan “came off the wrong way.”
“I never said James Dolan has a slave master mentality,” Green said. “I said when you look at something and someone is doing something for someone and all of a sudden they can’t anymore, that falls under the slave mentality.
“… I can’t say James Dolan is a racist. I don’t know James Dolan. Honestly, if he walked past me right now, I wouldn’t know who he is.”
Green said previously that he thought it was wrong of Dolan to ban Oakley from the Garden just because Oakley has been critical of the Knicks, especially after all he did for the team as a player in his 10 seasons there. Green stuck by that, but he insisted he is not calling Dolan a racist.
“Like I said, I don’t know [Dolan]. I could never say he’s a racist or he has a slave owner’s mentality,” he added. “I don’t know if he has that. That’s just how the situation looked to me from the outside looking in. And so that came off the wrong way, and it wasn’t what I meant by it.
“But what I meant by it, there should be a respect level between players, ownership, staff, people who work in the organization, the league office, former players. It’s a family. And I think there should always be a respect level that is kept amongst the family, and I don’t think that situation it was necessarily kept.”
Oakley’s ban from MSG lasted less than a week, as the situation turned into a public relations nightmare for Dolan. Between the comments Green made and what we heard from Oakley on Thursday, Dolan is suddenly being compared to former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. That may be unfair, but that’s clearly where we’re at.
