Marc Malusis: The Knicks’ circus continues to suck the care out of fans

For just a second, imagine if the Knicks were all about basketball. Imagine if the Knicks were all about winning and relevancy and the playoffs. Imagine if it was just about the product on the court.

From 1988 through 1998, that is what the Knicks were about when Charles Oakley played power forward at MSG. Growing up a Knicks fan, those years represent my glory days as a Knicks fan. I know they never won an NBA title and lost in gut wrenching style to the Houston Rockets in the 1994 NBA Finals. I don’t care because I cared each and every game during that era of Knicks basketball. They played with a physicality that is no longer part of the NBA game. Those Knicks teams cared as much as the fans cared about them. I have not felt that way about a Knicks team in a long time.

Wednesday night represented rock bottom for the Knicks as they played the Clippers at MSG. During the early portion of the game, Charles Oakley was ushered from his seat and arrested and dragged out of MSG. It was sad, alarming and stunning all at once.It also just shows you just how far off the Knicks are to being a winning and relevant franchise.

Don’t ask for James Dolan to get more involved, because this is what happens. It is a complete and utter dumpster fire when he takes on more of a roll and starts to meddle with basketball operations.

According to Dolan, he is going to honor the 5-year contract with Phil Jackson. So the Knicks President is not going anywhere anytime soon even though he has not shown the ability as of yet to build a consistent winning team.

As of late, the only thing that Jackson has shown the ability to do consistently is to tweak his star player Carmel Anthony on social media.

In 2007, NBA Commissioner David Stern criticized James Dolan saying the Knicks “are not a model of intelligent management.” As it was said 10 years ago, it can be said now as well. Under the ownership of James Dolan, the Knicks have not in any aspect been well run. What can the Knicks fan do? Some have called for protests or revolts. I get that, but I am not sure if it is long lasting because I do not think Dolan is going anywhere anytime soon and I do not think NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is going to step in and force his hand. Plus, I don’t think Dolan really cares how he is thought of and I do think he would rather be feared than loved.

To me, they suck the care out of you. That is what the Knicks have consistently done under the leadership of James Dolan. You almost get to a point where you say that they will not hurt me any longer and you build that emotional wall. We then get what happened Wednesday night, when a fan favorite and a 10-year Knick is being dragged out of MSG by security, handcuffed and arrested. Dolan does not admit a mistake publicly, he just fired the head of MSG security. Dolan just doubled down as he doubled down by trying to paint Oakley as an angry drunk monster. He also decided to ban him from MSG as well because he was concerned about the safety of his patrons at MSG. Seriously, he did say this. The Knicks need to realize and do it pretty quick that they can’t win a PR battle with Oakley. However, it might be too late for that realization.

Just for a second, imagine if it was just about basketball instead of everything else. As the days become months and the months become years, it becomes harder and harder to even imagine or dream about that. The Knicks continue to be a circus and it does not seem like it is leaving town anytime soon. They suck the care out of you.