Showing posts with label new york knicks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new york knicks. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Spiked Dolan

The more and more these incidents happen, the more I wonder when the NBA's worthless commissioner Adam Silver will intervene. Would someone dying or getting injured cause him to intervene with the Knicks? This time, it wasn't a nobody that has issues with owner James Dolan. It was filmmaker Spike Lee, arguably one of the most famous fans of the team.

Trying to make sense of it, it feels like a mess. I guess from the story, Lee had gone through an area he has gone through to go to the court at Madison Square Garden. He got his ticket scanned, goes to an elevator, then someone tells him to get off. It becomes an issue with security, telling to go another way to the arena. Later on, there was a talk with Lee and Dolan. It's all jumbled, but you're mainly going to hear Lee talk since Dolan is very private about what he does. And supposedly, everything seemed good with the Knicks PR, but Lee doesn't think so.

I will not say all of this is on Dolan, because Lee can be a bit of a nut. It could be a ploy for attention, but who knows. Bad attention is still good to some, right? But with the owner's past of being a complete baby and an asshole towards fans, it's not a huge surprise. The "sell the team" fiasco happened back in January. Last year, he banned a fan. He has targeted fans and called them alcoholics. There is no professionalism from this silver spoon of a moron. If it was a recently struggling team, okay, but this team has suffered for 20 years.

What will it take for the NBA to get involved? They were quick to get involved with Donald Sterling and rightfully so. But they don't want to ruin ratings for New York. Forget the bottom line you want, Silver. You keep allowing Dolan to act really bad and the writing is on the wall of fans getting restless and tired of the product they see on the court and TV. Add in a disastrous public relations group and the last five years of belittling fans, there has to be motivation to intervene.

Stop being a turd, Silver. Overthrow Dolan and get someone that actually wants to own the Knicks and make them a winning team again. Because these incidents get louder and louder and you can't hide in your office, waiting for it to wither away. If you don't, there will be more and more of these kind of incidents and it will leave a stain on your legacy.

Monday, July 1, 2019

Brooklyn Better Than Manhattan

If the trades from this weekend were a sign for New York City, it means one thing. The Brooklyn Nets are a team that has a lot more going than the lowly New York Knicks. And this comes after a time in march where Knicks owner James Dolan was looking to make a splash in free agency.

The Nets are going to have Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and DeAndre Jordan. That alone could make them advance in the playoffs in theory. For the Knicks, they got some scraps. Taj Gibson, Julius Randle, Bobby Portis, and Reggie Bullock. Not horrible, but anywhere what I think fans and the organization envisioned. What I see is a problem with the culture of the Knicks and what the Nets avoid.

For one thing, the Nets don't have huge issues with the press. It's a series of hoops to go through and red tape just to talk to Knicks players and staff. Public relations is a nightmare at Madison Square Garden. You can thank jackass Jonathan Supranowitz for not wanting to hear any negativity and having the public relations crew not want to hear criticism. Dolan hates criticism. That's what happens when you own a team that has been horrible for roughly 20 years and the owner does nothing about it.

There's a lot more that I can say, but the Nets are nowhere to the level of dysfunction compared to the Knicks. The players they got are capable of a good five to seven year run if they can all stay healthy and play on a high level. The borough of Brooklyn may just be superior to Manhattan with its basketball. But it's a wait and see situation.

Saturday, February 9, 2019

New York Sports' Most Disgraceful

In terms of New York sports, there has been success in the last 25 years. The Yankees have won a handful of championships. Two stunning Super Bowls for the Giants. A Stanley Cup for the Rangers. They have their pros and cons every year, but they have put together groups that can win it all and it showed. With that comes the black sheep in the form of the Knicks, a team who, quite frankly, should be boycotted.

Since the start of the 2001 season, they have only been good for two years and at least four playoff appearances. Maybe five. Just about every year, it has been losing season after losing season. They've gone through so many coaches and general managers, it's a complete dysfunction. It's like watching the Cleveland Browns in basketball form. The fact that they are valued at four billion dollars is embarrassing. Sure, some of their players do decent, but as a whole, the chemistry just isn't there.

The front office ain't exactly good, either. Just the mere fact that they still have that stupid media policy. New York beat writers can't even do normal stuff without security and a PR guy being next to them. Interviews are next to impossible. You hear stories from guys like Daily News' writer Frank Isola where they get shunned due to how the Knicks run things. I'll chalk it up as owner James Dolan not wanting to hear any shred of criticism. You're going to get criticized. Michael Kay can criticize the Yankees and the YES Network is okay with that. What also doesn't help is their PR person, Jonathan Supranowitz. That guy tries to be secretive and also not allow any criticism.

Unfortunately, these morons in New York City will sell out Madison Square Garden just to see the Knicks lose over and over. Any other team would lose fans. And honestly, it's time to boycott them. They are a disgrace to New York sports, the NBA, basketball in general, and anybody that works in media. Fans who go to the games, stop going. Don't watch the games on MSG or any channel. Start telling people that Dolan and Supranowitz need to be stripped of their power. Get chickenshit commissioner Adam Silver to stop being a complete pussy and overthrow those two. And maybe things could be better. It is absolute torture to see a once delightful team keep finding ways to be a complete embarrassment in sports.

Saturday, April 8, 2017

Dolan the Asshole

We go through another season of NBA Basketball and the New York Knicks have failed... again for the umpteenth time since 2001. They can never get themselves out of the cellar. Even with some of their big players, it's not enough to get even 40 wins. This year has been all kinds of embarrassment as they celebrated 70 years of basketball, which was when the NBA first started. Once again, owner James Dolan has found himself in the spotlight again, and the league will not do anything about it.

I'm sure some have heard about it already, but this past Tuesday, the Knicks faced the Chicago Bulls at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. A lawyer, Mike Hamersky, was having a quick beer at a bar after getting off work. A season ticket holder, he saw Dolan heading out to a limousine and said he should sell the team, which sounds like something you would hear the last 10 year or so years. Dolan heard it, and went back to Hamersky to call him an asshole and put up some wild accusations. The pudgy owner confirmed the story on Deadspin and told his take on the story. He accused Hamersky of being an alcoholic and told his security crew to make sure he didn't get into the Garden. Supposedly, a security guy did follow Hamersky, and the Knicks PR put up a statement, possibly written by Dolan about what happened and their thoughts. Sadly, this situation is not without precedent.

Back in February, beloved Knick legend Charles Oakley was arrested after security had to drag him out of Madison Square Garden. Oakley has never been liked by Dolan as he is not invited to participate in the team's activities with former players. What happened two months ago is up for interpretation. Some could say Oak said a few negative things by Dolan, or Dolan wanted him out because of what would happen. A night or two after the incident, Dolan goes on The Michael Kay Show and puts up an accusation that Oakley had an alcohol problem. He would ban the former great from the arena, fire a head of security for the incident, and the PR group dug a deeper hole that really made the situation a lot worse. In the end, a lot of people stood up for Oak while Dolan got even more hated. There was a meeting between the two and the ban was lifted.

Two years ago, Dolan got sent an angry email from a Knicks fan that had grown up with the team since their early days in the 1950s. In response, he berated the fan and accused him of not only being an alcoholic, but that he had done nothing positive in life. From this past Tuesday and these two examples, the NBA did nothing. This is a big punch to the face for the league, and its sad that there is no intervention because of the way Dolan acts.

The owner has been one of the most controversial and most hated in the league since his daddy, Charles, gave him the team in 1999. From what I understand, he is a very private person. One of his policies on MSG channels is that you can't criticize the Knicks no matter what. Marv Albert would do that one time in 2004, and he's been working at TNT ever since because Dolan didn't want to hear negativity from one of the biggest play-by-play announcers in the NBA.  He fumbled a lot on Detroit Piston legend Isaiah Thomas, which ultimately led to a lawsuit between Thomas and Anucha Browne Sanders regarding sexual harassment. Sanders would win her suit. The way Dolan has handled Phil Jackson has been subpar. There's just a lot of bad things that have occurred.

I don't get why Dolan gets frustrated and says stupid things. The Knicks have been a poor representation of the NBA for the last 15 years. How is that not surprising when he sees fans act that way? When you're that bad for so long, of course the damn fans are going to say to sell the team. He lacks any sort of professionalism. He's never worked hard at getting anything. The same things that are heard every day are going to be that way until he either sells the team (which he probably won't) or passes away.

If he says something even more derogatory or racist, what is commissioner Adam Silver going to do? Give him a slap on the wrist? The foot has to come down eventually, even as all those idiots in Manhattan sell out Madison Square Garden every game. The NBA can't keep dodging this stuff. They have to eventually punish Dolan, whether it's a huge fine or getting rid of the team. If I was in charge, I would get rid of Dolan, his PR guy Jonathan Supranowitz, get rid of their media policy, and try to get someone that is basketball oriented to be the owner instead of a cable TV oriented owner.

Something has to happened soon. Stalling is only going to make things worse. If it doesn't, shame on Silver.

Check out some earlier NBA blogs:
http://sullivanentertainment.blogspot.com/2017/03/tecmo-super-nba-basketball-sega-genesis.html
http://sullivanentertainment.blogspot.com/2017/03/rest-sports-ultimate-decision.html

Geeks and Jocks: Bonus Episode 7

 Bonus episode https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ryan-sullivan1gaj/episodes/Bonus-Episode-7-e27h1a2