Live by the triangle, die by the triangle.
That essentially is how James Dolan describes Phil Jackson’s failed tenure as team president of the Knicks, according to a wide-ranging ESPN interview in which the executive chairman and CEO of Madison Square Garden also slightly leaves open the possibility of one day selling the Knicks and the Rangers.
“Look, when I brought on Phil, the big question is, ‘Are you going to stay out of it?’ And I swore I would stay out of it, and I did. I stayed out of it. And it wasn’t until the very end that I had to make a decision that it clearly wasn’t working,” Dolan told ESPN.com. “I think Phil knew it, too. I think he hoped I would have more stamina, but I didn’t.
“I think it was much more about this triangle thing. It was much more about his philosophy, that he couldn’t get the group to buy into it. And I think he got yessed a lot. I think they’d be underneath their breath going, ‘This is not a great idea,’ and he got into conflict with some players over it. But I think he tried hard to get his system in. I just don’t think he ever got it in.”
Jackson, the former Knicks player and noted Zen Master who was hired to run the team after winning 11 NBA championships as head coach of the Bulls and the Lakers, was canned in June 2017 three years into a five-year deal worth $60 million.
The Knicks and Rangers owner also touched on his recent feud with WFAN and host Maggie Gray, who called Dolan “a vile piece of trash” this summer over his new song, “I Should’ve Known,” which seemingly depicted his relationship with disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
As reported by The Post, Dolan responded by banning all Knicks and Rangers players and team employees from appearing on WFAN shows and refusing to do business nationwide with the station’s parent company, Entercom. Gray would later apologize on air for the personal nature of the attack, and she said Monday that she has reached out for a face-to-face meeting with Dolan.
“Imagine yourself in your neighborhood and your neighbor two doors down, who comes to picnics, all of a sudden does something like Maggie’s rant and totally trashes you to the entire neighborhood,” Dolan told ESPN.com “And then shows up two months later and says, ‘Hey, can I borrow that socket wrench set that you have?’ What would you do with that? … I don’t find it noble to sit there and take an attack like that, but it has to be really over the line.”
Gray’s point of emphasis was that Dolan oversaw the Garden during Anucha Browne Sanders’ tenure, which ended with her successfully suing over a hostile work environment created by then-coach and team president Isiah Thomas. Dolan fired her over the accusations and let the case play out publicly in federal court before ultimately settling for $11.5 million.
“I think we didn’t defend ourselves well, so shame on us. … If I had to do it again, I’d be much more careful about how we defended ourselves,” Dolan said. “I’d be much more involved about it. I’d make sure that the truth came out, and the truth didn’t come out.”