It has been nearly five years since Knicks legend Charles Oakley was forcefully removed from Madison Square Garden, and Oakley says his relationship with the team and owner James Dolan has not improved since the incident.
“Relationship is not that good,” Oakley told Tiki and Tierney on Tuesday. “I’ve been wanting to fix it since day one, and they keep fighting. So we’re gonna play it out.”
Oakley was stunningly kicked out of The Garden in February of 2017, accused of striking a security officer and subsequently arrested. Charges were dropped, but he was banned from The Garden and eventually filed a civil lawsuit against Dolan and one against MSG, and both were dismissed. But the disdain from the incident, which occurred in the middle of a game against the Clippers, still remains.
Oakley blames Dolan for that, and said Dolan brought former Knicks like Latrell Sprewell with him to games shortly after the incident as a direct result of their feud.
“I wish I could get back into The Garden and see the fans,” Oakley said. “I miss the fans, they show me so much love. But there’s something wrong with the owner. I’m not the only one having a problem with him.
“I can say that all I want. He doesn’t want to end it…he is, I don’t know how to say it, but [Latrell] Sprewell, he wasn’t going there for 12 years until that incident happened with me. So he paid 10-12 guys to come sit courtside when it happened.”
Oakley has maintained that Dolan has shown him consistent “disrespect” over the years, but that the Knicks owner tried to use other methods to sweep the incident under the rug, like suggesting that they hang Oakley’s No. 34 in the MSG rafters.
“He admitted he was wrong,” Oakley said. “We had a meeting two days after, and he wanted to retire my jersey all of a sudden. He would never shake my hand, but all of a sudden he wants to retire my jersey. Where did this come from?
“We talked about having a press conference, me and him…but the whole thing, he just lied for no reason, and then called me an alcoholic, he just went on a tear about me.”
Oakley was hoping for help from a former teammate when Dolan was criticizing Oakley’s behavior and banning him from the place he called home for a decade, but instead, the feud lives on.
“The main guy that could have played a role in this would have been Patrick [Ewing] when this happened,” Oakley said. “But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t say anything to me until like six months ago…out of all the guys I played with, I’m looking at Patrick, because we played together the longest. We played 10 years together at The Garden, and I always had his back.”
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