Michael Jordan and Charles Oakley's relationship dates back to their time together as Chicago Bulls teammates (and close friends) for three seasons in the 1980's, but now that Jordan is one of the league's 30 majority owners, Oakley doesn't see Jordan as an ally in his feud with New York Knicks owner James Dolan.
In February of 2017, Oakley was ejected from the Garden after a run-in with security after he apparently heckled the maligned owner. He was cleared of charges but was banned from the Garden by Dolan. Afterwards, Dolan insinuated Oakley “may have a problem with alcohol.” Oakley sued Dolan for defamation, assault and false imprisonment, but the lawsuit was dismissed. Oakley filed an appeal.
Jordan reportedly tried to mediate the beef between Oakley and Dolan, advocating for the two to sit down with commissioner Adam Silver. Evidently, Oakley did not appreciate Jordan involving himself in the dispute.
“Michael Jordan shouldn’t have gotten involved,” Oakley told VLADTV, via the New York Post. “He’s an owner now…We had a conversation but his conversation’s not helping me because you’re working with the owners now. I’m just a regular guy on the street now.”
“I called him and told him, it’s nothing that you can do for us,” the Knicks icon added.
Still, Oakley said he's glad that Jordan “always had my back but it’s just a situation that this man [Dolan] is 1,000 percent wrong..and he didn’t get punished for nothing, yet.”
“It was some B.S. what happened,” Oakley said about the incident. “For someone to blame me for doing something I didn’t do and you as the owner…I played in New York 10 years, ain’t none of this came nowhere.”
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