Charles Oakley’s was arrested on Wednesday night after he had an altercation with security at Madison Square Garden after he was accused of heckling and antagonizing Knicks owner James Dolan.
Oakley and the Knicks have differing accounts of what happened to lead to security coming up to Oakley, and the majority of support from former and current NBA players, as well as NBA Twitter, has come in on Oakley’s side. LeBron James posted a picture of Oakley to Instagram on Wednesday night, but the most forceful and overt message of support for Oakley from a current star came on Thursday from Chris Paul.
Hope that he gets some help soon? Not the right way to portray Oak…always had my back and the realest person our league has seen #UncleOak
— Chris Paul (@CP3) February 9, 2017
Paul is referencing the Knicks statement that was released on Wednesday night about the incident that called for Oakley to “get help soon.”
— NY_KnicksPR (@NY_KnicksPR) February 9, 2017
It’s a strong statement from Paul and a rare instance of a current player calling out another team directly. It’s strange, but as has everything about this entire situation. For starters, it’s a former Knicks legend getting kicked out of a Knicks game and the team pressing charges on Oakley, which is weird. It also involves Phil Jackson reportedly calling Michael Jordan to try and deescalate the situation.
This issue isn’t going away any time soon and is just the latest bit of dysfunction from the Knicks organization.
