The NBA community was shocked by a report from investigative sports journalist Pablo Torre and Wired’s Noah Schactman that alleged that New York Knicks owner James Dolan has been heavily surveilling tweets from fans that are critical of him.
“There’s this one teenager in Colorado, who said something on Twitter, and [Madison Square Garden chief security officer John C. Eversole] and the Madison Square Garden security staff went into freak out mode, and they actually called the local cops on this kid,” Schactman said.
“Yeah, we even got another text message about this,” Schactman continued, “and I’m quoting here, ‘at least they scared the crap – poop emoji – out of some 14-year-old kid in Colorado.’ One veteran of Madison Square Garden told me that Dolan would ‘come in and he and Eversole would come in and pore over all these social media comments about the Knicks and the Rangers.”
Max Kellerman believes it’s time the NBA and commissioner Adam Silver stepped in.
“The fact that people aren’t more outraged by this,” Kellerman said on his “Game Over” podcast with Rich Paul. “And I understand Donald Sterling lost his team because he was caught on audio saying explicitly racist things, but the point is the precedent was set, and I think it was a good one. We don’t want that in the NBA.”
“He’s so thin-skinned. His ego is so fragile, he can’t take any kind of criticism. In a sports arena. He can’t take criticism from fans?” Kellerman continued. “That is so outrageous. I think before this gets worse, the league, the other owners should consider whether they want Dolan as a partner in this syndicate, whether they want him to own the Knicks.”
Kellerman acknowledged the difference between this situation and that of former Los Angeles Clippers Donald Sterling, who was ousted from the league for racist comments, but this is a particularly egregious move from Dolan, who is already one of the least popular owners in the association.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.