In 2019, Forbes appraised the Knicks’ value at $4 billion, equal to that of the Yankees, and second in North America only to the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys. Even in an era of franchise inflation, it was a staggering figure. And yet, around the same time, a group of shareholders from the Garden’s publicly traded company claimed in a lawsuit that Dolan was dramatically overpaying himself while spending too much time as front man for a marginal blues band benefiting from the arena’s showbiz connections.
Under Dolan’s stewardship, the Knicks have experienced nearly two decades of mostly horrendous basketball, with a revolving cast of forgettable and, in some cases, detestable characters. The notoriously combative owner, among his other greatest behavioral fits, occasionally tore into complaining fans as “assholes” and “drunks,” while himself a recovering alcoholic. Bound to say or do something wantonly damaging to the Knicks brand, creating a news-breaking firestorm while doing so, Dolan became a godsend for those of us churning out sports columns. But no critic cut to the bone quite like Selena Roberts, my former Sports of the Times colleague, who in October 2007 authored a scathing piece titled “The Garden Needs a Warning Label”:
As the legend goes, it was years ago, aboard a sleek family yacht, when Charles F. Dolan asked his executive crewmates an earnest question: “What about Jim?”
His son needed an occupation. Something to divert his rock-star ambitions. Something to focus him. So he decided to give James L. Dolan what amounted to a skate key to Madison Square Garden, a business irrelevant to Cable Daddy’s vast bottom line, a playground where his son could do no harm.
Except Jim turned his toy into a weapon. Inside the Garden, “Got Hurt?” has become the slogan for vulnerable staffers. For years, he had wounded careers and savaged dissenters while assembling a cult of personality where only his sycophants survive amid a game of Jim-nastics.
Roberts’s killer column was one piece of a savage media beating that Dolan was taking in New York and beyond. A sexual harassment civil trial brought against the Garden and Isiah Thomas, then the Knicks’ president and general manager, by a fired marketing director named Anucha Browne Sanders had exposed a side to the team’s operations far worse than mere incompetence.
Dolan didn’t help matters, or his own image, in a deposition video that found its way to the viewing public. He wore a collarless black shirt, his body slumped and his head bobbing as if he might nod off. Michelle couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “He showed up not dressed in a suit, like the whole thing wasn’t worth his time,” she told me. “Dress the part and sit up straight, you idiot!”
Dolan explained his reasoning for not settling out of court by claiming, “The fighter came out in me.” Michelle read something beyond defiance, not only because Dolan stood by Thomas for a time, but because even after firing him for poor team performance, he brought him back to the Garden—as president of the group’s WNBA franchise! He actually seemed to enjoy “spitting in people’s eyes.” But not surprisingly, his pricey defense in the Browne Sanders case went down like a punch-drunk heavyweight, costing Dolan and his organization $11.5 million in damages, plus lawyers’ fees. A negotiated settlement would surely have amounted to a fraction of that amount.
In the process, Dolan allowed the allegations of misogyny against Thomas to be revealed and painstakingly repeated, insult by profane insult. Michelle—along with anyone who understood how corporate America operated—was astonished that Dolan had let the case go that far and failed to protect the reputation of his company, if not Thomas, his supposed friend. The inflated compensation package doubled as a microcosm of the paradox Dolan presented to Knicks fans. Upon assuming the Garden chairmanship, he reportedly told Dave Checketts, still the building’s president, “Don’t you ever lose a player over money,” and he backed that up by spending big bucks on his team, overpaying when necessary. It provided him a reasonable defense against his many critics. He really did want to win.
In his defense, Dolan did rise to controlling power at an unfortunate time, just as the Patrick Ewing era was winding down. The post-Riley years had been surprisingly fertile under the coaching guidance of Jeff Van Gundy, a brash but likable Riley disciple who was given the job at the startling age of thirty-four. Standing all of five feet nine, he became an immediate favorite of Michelle’s, who no longer had her courtside view obstructed by someone over six feet tall.
Riley, meanwhile, went to Miami and built another team in his combative image. As it turned out, every NBA postseason between 1997 and 2000 featured a bitter playoff showdown between the Knicks and the Heat, Van Gundy and Riley, Ewing and Alonzo Mourning, his fellow Georgetown alum. So accustomed did Michelle become to seeing Riley on the opposing bench, it was as if he had never left the Garden but had only switched roles, the hero wrestler turned heel. Better yet, Van Gundy’s Knicks won three of the four showdowns, a brawling brand of basketball that was akin to awaiting a wreck at the Daytona 500. Although neither team won a title, the Knicks, after barely slipping into the 1999 playoffs and upsetting the Heat in the first round, did reach the Finals, where, without an injured Ewing, they went down in five games to the San Antonio Spurs.
By 2000, Ewing was aging and cranky, feeling unappreciated by an organization that was planning for life without him. He requested a trade and was shipped to Seattle. Within months, the savvy Checketts was gone from the Garden’s executive suite. Not long after, Van Gundy, the self-deprecating everyman who had replaced Riley, the image-conscious perfect man, vacated the coaching sidelines. By that time, it was clear that something ominous was happening at the Garden, behind the scenes. Reports from disgruntled insiders and
