Charles Oakley claims Amazon's Jeff Bezos 'wants to buy the Knicks'
During the filming of the pilot episode for The Ringer’s “Tough Chef With Charles Oakley,” the former New York Knicks star served a tasty nugget of NBA news.
“Jeff Bezos wants to buy the Knicks,” Oakley told The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Jason Concepcion on the set of his upcoming web series. “He was going to try do Amazon Long Island, and he went to Virginia, so he still wants to do some real estate in New York. Why not buy the Garden? That’s someone you can’t question. It’s not like he needs to get three or four other investors. He’s the investor himself.”
Given his feud with current Knicks owner James Dolan, Oakley may be wishing this into existence, but as a beloved ex-player for the franchise, the 55-year-old former All-Star might also have some exclusive insight into the organization.
After publicly criticizing Dolan for years, including threatening to put “something in” a dinner he wanted to cook for the billionaire, Oakley was dragged from Madison Square Garden by security in February 2017, reportedly at the owner’s behest.
In addition to a war of words between the two that included Dolan calling Oakley “an alcoholic” and Oakley comparing Dolan to disgraced ex-Clippers owner Donald Sterling, both men faced legal battles. Assault, harassment and trespassing charges against Oakley were later dropped, but not before he filed a lawsuit levying assault, false imprisonment and defamation charges against Dolan and his security. An NBA attempt to mediate the matter with Michael Jordan could not broker peace.
Meanwhile, Simmons and the Knicks owner have also engaged in a recent public standoff. Following the All-Star break, Simmons reported on his podcast that Dolan “is courting offers for the Knicks,” and that people with the means to meet his asking price are preparing offers. The Knicks issued a statement denying this, and Dolan later said of Simmons on ESPN Radio, “There are teams that do not want us to get free agents. He’s very close friends with the GM of one team. What they’re doing is they’re trying to destabilize because they know we’re favored.”
Simmons stood by his reporting and dismissed this notion on the obvious grounds that the Knicks under Dolan have done a fine job of destabilizing themselves for two decades. There’s also the fact that Dolan told ESPN in December, “I could never say that I wouldn’t consider selling the Knicks,” conceding that $5 billion feeler offers have been floated. Bezos, by the way, is worth upwards of $150 billion.
As for those free agents Dolan says the Knicks “are favored” to land this summer, namely Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, Oakley also believes his former team is more likely to spend its two max contracts on Jimmy Butler and Kemba Walker. Ouch.
If this is the spice Oakley will be cooking on his show, I’m here for it. Let’s just hope the ex-Knick doesn’t actually serve Dolan his tainted dinner on the pilot episode.
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Ben Rohrbach is a staff writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach
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