The United States of America is facing some pretty big scandals right now. There’s federal agencies seemingly ignoring court order, the top national security aide at the White House maybe committing treason, and perhaps most importantly, the saga of Charles Oakley vs. the human embodiment of a temper tantrum, James Dolan.
Thankfully, in this volatile world, the latter scandal is finally starting to dissipate. Dolan has decided after meeting with Michael Jordan and Adam Silver that he will allow Charles Oakley, one of the best players in the history of his New York Knicks, to come back to Madison Square Garden.
Without context, this makes absolutely no sense, which is why I think it’s important to lead with it. If you spent the last week without internet service, you would be thoroughly confused about every part of that sentence. But here we are.
A brief recap our country’s most innocent scandal, yet also the most seriously-discussed by all parties involved:
- Charles Oakley was ejected from a Knicks game last Wednesday, reportedly for making comments to owner James Dolan. Phil Jackson came over to Oakley to calm him down, and Oakley yelled that “Dolan did this.”
- Oakley then got into a fight with Madison Square Garden security and was arrested and charged with assault.
- After being released from jail, Oakley almost ran over a New York Daily News sports writer with his car. Not that this is at all relevant, but this story has a ton of strange anecdotes.
- Oakley said he did nothing wrong, and the Knicks released a statement saying they “hope he gets help.” They released an updated statement omitting the “help” part, but said Oakley’s account of the incident was “pure fiction.”
- Dolan fired the Madison Square Garden security chief, in part because he was mad that Oakley wasn’t ejected before getting to his seats. Then he gave an interview where he speculated that Oakley is an alcoholic and doubled down on him needing “help.” He also said Oakley was banned from MSG, but not necessarily for life.
- Dolan sat with Latrell Sprewell, who he previously had beef with, at a game on Sunday.
- Reverend Al Sharpton threatened to picket outside MSG unless Dolan lifted the ban on Oakley.
- Jordan and Silver met with Dolan and Oakley to try to make everyone happy. Oakley’s lawyer was happy with the meeting: “We’re gratified by the sincere interest that the commissioner took in this issue as well as Mr. Jordan and are glad that Charles and Mr. Dolan were able to sit down as grown-ups and worked their way through this.”
- Now Oakley is un-banned, but he still wants Dolan to apologize.
What a saga. What an ending.
This is like telling a child that they have to share their toys, and after hours of long talks and temper tantrums—while crossing their arms and staring at the ground repeating “I won’t do it, I won’t do it!”—they finally, begrudgingly give in. As insane as it all is, at least this saga is (probably) over. One less scandal for our country to worry about.
[ESPN]
