NEW YORK - Please, do!
It would not be surprising if that was the majority sentiment after the unwashed masses heard, through Ian O’Connor’s interview, that James (Guitar Jimmy) Dolan just might sell the Knicks if the right rich cat can come up with the $5 billion price tag.
Dolan said he already had some inquiries. Still, reading all of Dolan’s complaints about the verbal and media abuse he has taken from fans over the years for his mismanagement of the Knicks, and his usual stubbornness, which has him defending or explaining away many of his many, many blunders, a portrait emerges of a man who has everything but is still miserable.
Dolan tries selling the image of a street fighter (this rebel with a cause sucked on a vape pen during the interview) who will take on anyone in the corporate or public arenas. In the end, while answering the interviewer’s questions, Dolan is really using ESPN.com to throw himself a pity-party.
Was this his mission when he agreed to talk to O’Connor?
Dolan is not big on interviews. And when he does one, it’s either with a radio station he can bully because of a financial relationship, like “The Michael Kay Show” on the Knicks’ flagship ESPN-98.7, or his long-time WFAN Water Boy Mike Francesa. The timing of the ESPN.com session, headlined “Dolan Unplugged,” is strange.
It’s not like it’s the best of times for the Knicks or Rangers. They can only sell hope. Nonetheless, Dolan was in a good position to reassure the fanbase, and perhaps any high-profile free-agents-to-be, that with Steve Mills and Scott Perry running the show, ANOTHER new era has begun where he has the right executives in place and is able to keep his distance from the basketball team he owns.
That pronouncement, which has been issued several times before, either is a lie or a gross miscalculation. It’s the same old, tired line Dolan expressed when he hired Phil Jackson to run the show. Or going back further, when he spewed the same jive following his disastrous decision to waste millions hiring Larry Brown.
The answers Dolan provided O’Connor could not change reality. Anyway, O’Connor told 98.7’s Stephen A. Smith he had requested the sit-down after Dolan put the WNBA Liberty up for sale last May and was “surprised” after time passed when the Garden boss accepted.
In the piece, O’Connor mentioned Dolan had a PR chaperone by his side taking notes and recording the interview. Dolan confirmed his PR department keeps “clip-file dossiers on those who cover the Garden and its teams.” So granting O’Connor access was not about Dolan suddenly announcing the dawning of a new era of media freedom inside MSGulag.
And if Dolan – or his PR people – thought he could use the interview to re-invent himself and improve his image, they were hopelessly wrong. From the outside looking in it’s not a reach to say Dolan is blessed.
He owns lucrative properties like the Knicks, Rangers, MSG Network and the Garden, which, despite being the Home of Losers, is still portrayed by a nostalgic media as the “Mecca” or the “World’s Most Famous Arena.” He even gets to cultivate his artistic side by fronting his own blues band (Dolan vehemently denied the idea that Knicks players did not like him playing guitar on the team plane), yet he is still a sad-sack who cannot find happiness.
Dolan is 63. It’s unlikely he’s going to change now. He’s so joyless he even said he would not take part in a Knicks parade through the Canyon of Heroes if they ever won the NBA title under his ownership. How could anyone not feel bad – or at least some sympathy – for a man who can’t find himself? Maybe he should consider walking away for good and find happiness before it’s too late.
This does not mean selling the Knicks or the Rangers. It does mean finding a trusted executive to take over running the Garden. Or maybe grooming someone in his family to eventually rise to the top.
Then James Dolan could walk away. Maybe even with a smile on his face.