It all started a couple of days ago, when James Dolan received an email. This email was written by 73-year old Knicks fan Irving Bierman. In the email, Bierman gets on Dolan for his handling of the Knicks. Why try to sugar coat it. Here's the email that was written to Dolan by Irving (Courtesy of Deadspin, who reported the story):
At one stage I thought that you did a wonderful thing when you acquired EVERYTHING from your dad. However, since then it has been ALL DOWN HILL. Your working with Isaiah Thomas everything else regarding the Knicks. Bringing on Phil Jackson was a positive beginning, but lowballing Steve Kerr was a DISGRACE to the knicks. The bottom line is that you merely continued to interfere with the franchise.
As a knicks fan for in excess of 60 years, I am utterly embarrassed by your dealings with the Knicks. Sell them so their fans can at least look forward to growing them in a positive direction Obviously, money IS NOT THE ONLY THING. You have done a lot of utterly STUPID business things with the franchise. Please NO MORE.
Now you would think that after receiving an email like that, James Dolan would take the high road and either not respond or send a non angry letter. Well that didn't happen. Not only did Dolan respond, he did so by kind of sticking his foot in his mouth. Here's Dolan's response email (again courtesy of Deadspin):
You are a sad person. Why would anybody write such a hateful letter. I am.just guessing but ill bet your life is a mess and you are a hateful mess. What have you done that anyone would consider positive or nice. I am betting nothing. In fact ill bet you are negative force in everyone who comes in contact with you. You most likely have made your family miserable. Alcoholic maybe. I just celebrated my 21 year anniversary of sobriety. You should try it. Maybe it will help you become a person that folks would like to have around. In the mean while start rooting.for the Nets because the Knicks dont want you.
Respectfully,
James Dolan
When spokespeople at MSG where asked about the Email and whether it was real or not, they had confirmed that it was indeed a real email fired back by James Dolan.
There is so much wrong here with this. First off how can an owner of a basketball team be this stupid. I mean didn't we kinda go through something like this already? It's not nearly as bad as what Donald Sterling did last year, but it is still up there as one of the stupidest things that anybody can ever do. To make matters even worse, Dolan said in the email that he felt the other guy may be an alcoholic. How Dolan can assume that just by reading a simple email is pretty mind boggling. The guy is 73 years old, he is dealing with advanced age working against him. Dolan should have realized that.
Also think about this. Take another look at the email Dolan wrote back as a response. See how many grammatical errors there are in the email? Yeah exactly, there's quite a few. Who the hell knows what was going threw Dolan's head before writing this email. I won't speculate at all but I'm a little worried here about Doaln's mental health. MSG even confirmed that Dolan sent the email. This really makes me start to smell a rat here. That is a bad PR move here by the Knicks organization from the top all the way down. The smart thing that should have been done here would be to take the high road, and write a respectful letter saying we will take your advice into consideration and hope you continue being a fan of the team. Doing what Dolan and the rest of the organization did was one of the most boneheaded things you can do as an owner of a franchise.
Is something going to happen from this? I really have no idea. I think the NBA and commissioner Adam Silver are going to take a look into this matter, which they should do. So far, I'll gladly admit that Silver has done a great job, to this point, of handling the negative PR that has hit the NBA since he took over from David Stern running the NBA. Commissioner Silver will handle this in due process and I have a hunch feeling that something will happen, even if its nothing more than really a slap on the wrist.
Now after this, reports are coming in that fans are trying hard to get Dolan to sell his share in the Knicks. It's the same group of fans who spent all this time calling for the Jets to fire GM John Idzik (which did happen at the end of the regular season). Jason Koeppel and his brother Jared, along with friends Greg Kohler and Dan Filowitz, have launched Knicks4Sale.com, a detailed website that calls for Dolan to sell the team. The campaign, which also features a Twitter and a Facebook account, hopes to raise $20,000 in donations to pay for a billboard on 30th Street and Seventh Avenue near Madison Square Garden (ESPN).
Many of the fans, including these four guys, may have a legit gripe. The price of going to games has skyrocketed for a team that hasn't been very exciting the last 15 years. They have won one playoff series in that time frame, while this year is becoming a tank job with 10 wins at the time of this writing. Dolan has been more hands on with his Knicks team, as he is more hands on with the Knicks than he is the Rangers, it gives fans more of a target for their poison when the team starts to suck. I highly doubt Dolan is going to be selling the team anytime soon. He's making money on the club so why should he sell it.
James Dolan was unhappy with an email somebody sent him, so he set off this small firestorm in response.
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