Every night at the Knicks home playoff games, a slew of former players are sitting courtside rooting on Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns and the current team.
Patrick Ewing, Allan Houston, John Starks, Larry Johnson, Latrell Sprewell, JR Smith.
The gang’s all there.
All except for Charles Oakley, that is.
Oakley was famously ejected from the Garden in 2017 on owner James Dolan’s watch and then filed a lawsuit against Dolan and the Garden. The New York Post recently reported that Oakley would be welcomed back into the Knicks family if he dropped the lawsuit.
In an interview with former NBA player Jim Jackson, Oakley was asked what it would take to get him to make peace with ownership and return to the Garden. Oakley largely blamed Ewing for him not being welcomed back.
“Even though all them guys [are] going back, I really can’t blame all them guys, because I didn’t really play with all of them,” Oakley said. “The ones I played with who got some power, I thought would be Patrick, but he didn’t step up. So I hold him more responsible than anybody else, because he’s supposed to be our franchise players. I played with him for 10 years…He haven’t spoke up yet, so I’m gonna let it just play out. I would love to be there. I know the fans would love me to be there. I love the fans. They gave me a lot of cheer over the years, but it all started from the Commission[er Adam Silver], the owner and all other owners in the NBA, because he making it bad for all the teams in the league for something like this to be going on for eight years.
Asked what specifically Ewing, who now serves as a basketball ambassador with the Knicks, is “not doing that’s not helping the situation, Oakley went off on his former teammate, a Naismith Hall of Famer.
“By being there, No. 1,” Oakley said. ”No. 2, he should have called me and talked to me like a man when this happened. Never done that. I had Reggie Miller, Brad Doherty, MJ [Michael Jordan], all the other guys I went to war with, they spoke up, but guys I played with…I guess it go with [Ewing’s] style of life. He never been a guy who really when we was down and out in the situation, in court with a playoff game, regular season game, you know, never stepped up. So maybe I shouldn’t expect him to step up so much now and that’s what’s wrong a lot of these guys. Use your voice. Don’t let the dollar control you, you control the narrative.”
Time is running out. If the Knicks lose Saturday, their season will end. If they win and force a Game 7 on Monday, there probably won’t be time for Oakley and Dolan to resolve the situation.
That would only leave the NBA Finals in terms of this season, but the Knicks have some work to do.
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Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter and Basketball Insider for NJ Advance Media. You may follow him on Twitter @AdamZagoria and check out his Website at ZAGSBLOG.com.