Former New York Knicks forward, Charles Oakley, and the teams owner have been ordered to work things out. The two are to have their dispute mediated by the federal court of appeals.
They will have their mediation over the phone, due to COVID-19. It will be presided over by former Supreme Court justice Charles Ramos.
The former Knicks player was escorted out of the Garden in February of 2017 after a dispute with the owner. During the dispute, Oakley hit a security guard in his face, shoved another guard before being dragged away from the game and handcuffed.
There were speculation that Oakley had no comments towards the Knicks owner, despite reports, and was confronted for no reason then things escalated. Oakley was banned from the Garden shortly after but the ban was later lifted in 6 days later. In September 2017, Oakley then filed a civil lawsuit over the incident.
Whatever people may believe or want to believe about that incident, this is a good thing. It’s time to resolve this conflict which was uncalled for from beginning. It wasn’t a good look for the Knicks organization and continues to linger over their heads.
All these negative incident or reports within the Knicks organization need to be taken care of. The Knicks are trying to rebuild, rebrand, and turn around the organization. These types of interactions brings a negative stigma towards the franchise. It could be why some free agents didn’t choose the Knicks in the past and recently.
This is step in the right direction for the organization to change the opinions some may have about them. The New York Knicks need this conflict to be resolved so they can turn their attention to cleaning up other incidents. When this is resolved, next up, the Spike Lee incident.