Singer/songwriter James Dolan, who also moonlights as the Knicks owner, pledged to let Phil Jackson run the Knicks.
That hasn’t gone completely smoothly so far, but Dolan says he’s doing a good job. And Jackson, like any good employee, backs him up.
Scott Cacciola of The New York Knicks:
“I am definitely spending less time with the Knicks,” Dolan said.
He said he had advised Jackson that he was available if Jackson ever wanted to bounce anything off him.
“I simply said, ‘If you need me, call me,’ ” Dolan recalled, pausing for half a beat. “He did not call me.”
Jackson said his interactions with Dolan had been limited to a couple of conversations a month. In fact, Jackson said, he went all of August without speaking with him, simply because there was no need to. More often, General Manager Steve Mills operates as a go-between.
“Jim’s told me he’s been really glad that he hasn’t had to delve into it,” Jackson said in a telephone interview this week.
“It was always my intention to have other people do it,” Dolan said, referring to basketball operations. “But it was also my intention that the other people would win. We didn’t always do that. A good executive, when things aren’t going well, gets down and finds out what’s going wrong and tries to fix it.”
But I’m also concerned about him using Mills as a cover. Pressuring Jackson into making a decision by having Mills deliver the message is not better than delivering it directly. In fact, it’s probably worse.
Dolan deserves a chance to prove he won’t harmfully meddle, but history is not on his side. And this early into Jackson’s tenure, especially because there’s already been an issue with the team’s medical staff, is too soon to draw any positive conclusions.