Well… That Got Out of Hand Quickly

Poor Charles Oakley. In less than a week, he went from “a former New York Knick that you’d completely forgotten about” to a man who was charged with 3 misdemeanor assaults yet defiantly insisted that HE get an apology from an NBA owner in a public press conference.

In today’s world, it actually makes perfect sense. Whenever somebody can be painted as a victim, they will be cloaked in those sad clothes and milked for all it’s worth. Awww, poor Charles Oakley. Facts, reason, and personal responsibility….. go to hell. All of you.

Thousands of NBA players must attend NBA games every year. Let’s do some loose math: 1,230 games x 3 players per game, minimum = 3,690. Out of all those players, Charles Oakley is the FIRST and ONLY one I can remember having to be physically removed from the building.

Even if a few others had been ejected quietly (unlikely), then still Oakley is surely the ONLY one to finger-poke, arm-chop, and shove a bunch of security guards who were just trying to do their jobs.

Furthermore, given that James Dolan – despicable, greedy, paranoid despot that he surely is – has a number of ex-Knicks still working within and around the organization, it all points to one logical conclusion.

IT’S OAKLEY!

Hello? Have I lost my mind here? Why the blind support for a guy who was telling reporters are recently as November that he wanted to get into a locked room with Dolan one-on-one? Does the fact that Oakley badmouthed the Knicks in public, mean anything to anybody?

Here, read this passage from the New York Times article about his so-called “exile” from the Knicks? Oakley ranges from asshole to mental patient. He even delusionally muses that the Knicks will “someday need me for something.”

“The boss don’t like me,” Oakley said last week. “I wouldn’t mind having a sit-down dinner with Dolan. I wouldn’t mind cooking him dinner.”

Pause.

“Might put something in it, though!”

Pause.

“I mean, I had at least 15 people try to set up a meeting. He won’t meet. I want to sit down to talk to him. I want me and him in a room. And lock the door. Lock that door!”

Another pause.

“I mean, he can have the police outside the door.”

So yeah, here he is one night last week, plopped down just 4 rows behind Dolan at a game, and MSG security is eyeing him up one side and down the other. Or, as I would put it – DOING THEIR JOBS!

Sorry Charles, if you didn’t like that. But words can become actions, and actions can become disasters. No matter what a scumbag Dolan may be – and we all know, it’s “Elite” level scumbag owner – you still don’t get to do whatever you want in the arena.

Sorry. It’s called living in the real world. Not to mention this unfortunate fact: everybody else came to watch the game and have a good time. Oakley’s disruption, and the current shitty version of the Knicks, took care of that. They lost, blowing a 10 point 2nd half lead.

Of course the majority of the sports media – and almost every single ex-NBA player – immediately started in with an Oakley pity party. The first line of argument was that: “Hey, Dolan had a right to remove him, but don’t say in a statement he ‘needs help.'”

Then the argument shifted further to how “sad” it was to see a local “legend” thrown to the ground like that. (If it had been just some scrub ex-Knick like Anthony Bonner? Nah… fuck him.) Besides, it wasn’t even accurate to say that he was “thrown to the ground.”

Like many NBA stars today: HE TOOK A DIVE! Watch the video! He just pulled up his landing gear like a kid throwing himself to the grocery store floor asking for Fruity Pebbles. They even tried to help him up, reaching down for his hands and pleading: “Oak, here. Get up!”

But in an age where facts will never compete with a good visual, even a careful look at a bad visual to ascertain the truth, won’t compete a narrative that has already been decided: Oakley was a victim. Period. Full stop.

Al Sharpton was ready to picket games, until Oakley’s MSG ban was removed. Yeah, no. I’m serious.

Then some pundits started going in on how the commissioner needed to get involved… and… poof! There he was! Adam Silver brokering a conference call truce, that seemed – for the moment – to end it all.

That lasted for about 12 hours, until Oakley started waging new conditions in a radio interview on his victimization from big bad Jimmy Dolan’s goons. He wanted a public apology with Dolan bowing to him, and the fans! Yah. Good luck.

The last spin of this ridiculous story of non-responsibility and bad behavior being rewarded, was with Warriors forward Draymond Green saying Dolan has a “plantation mentality” with his team.

Ohhhkay. Super. CHECK PLEASE!

It’s fine to say that James Dolan is a terrible owner, who has singlehandedly ruined the Knicks. But the coddling of Charles Oakley, just proves that the media and the public seem to have an endless appetite for making even severely misguided dipwads into victims.