Charles Oakley appears to have another enemy besides James Dolan.
The retired former All-Star big man Oakley appeared this week on the “Showtime with Coop” podcast hosted by fellow ex-NBAer Michael Cooper. During the show, Oakley accused NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the league of snubbing him during last year’s All-Star Game. All-Star Weekend was held in Oakley’s hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, and Oakley had expected tickets to the festivities.
“I played 19 years, and they came to Cleveland [for] All-Star [Weekend],” said Oakley, per the New York Post. “They didn’t give me one ticket. I had six [independent] events [that weekend]. They didn’t give me no help, no T-shirt, no keychains. They had 25 events. They didn’t invite me to nothing.
“All they care about is celebrities sitting courtside for a photo for them,” Oakley continued. “They don’t care about us. That’s what’s so disrespecting.”
Oakley also said that he called the NBA in advance about All-Star Weekend but to no avail. He called it a “total turn-off” and promised to give Silver a “mouthful” the next time that they see each other.
Oakley, now 59, is a very prominent former NBA player. But he caused a PR headache for the league in 2017 when he got himself forcibly removed from Madison Square Garden in a major scene amid a dispute with Knicks owner James Dolan. Oakley later went on to file a lawsuit against Dolan and the Knicks, which was revived by the New York Court of Appeals earlier this year after initially being dismissed by a lower court.
Later in Cooper’s podcast, Oakley said that he believes the NBA is singling him out because of the MSG incident. Whether or not that is actually the case, though, the league has a very unhappy former player on its hands.
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