How quickly can the owner of a reigning championship team spend down a sudden windfall of goodwill? James Dolan has spent the NBA offseason exploring that hypothetical, and he appears to be a gifted speedrunner.
The owner of the New York Knicks began his work before the job was even done this past June, inviting Donald Trump to Game 3 of the NBA Finals. That wound up being the team's only loss in an otherwise torrid 15-game playoff stretch. Then, at the team's victory parade, mere days after he'd funded the first title in 53 years for a team beloved by America's biggest city, Dolan took the mic and glowered. To cap off an event that united an estimated 2 million fans in communal joy, the team owner used his time in the pulpit to (predictably) take a shot at Mayor Zohran Mamdani and (inexplicably) question the Knicks fandom of parade attendees. "I don't need your vote," he told the fans, for some reason.
For all the justified criticisms of Dolan over the years, he has typically been willing to spend his money on the team. A fan could have reasonably expected that an owner who has already spent big on some catastrophic Knicks rosters would happily spend big to return a lucrative, championship-winning roster, even under the current collective bargaining agreement, which punishes high spenders. But this was not the case. Just four days after the Knicks lifted the trophy, Dolan told WFAN that he would not spend into the second apron to keep the team intact. "We're willing to stretch, but there's certain things in the NBA that you'd have to be suicidal to do," he said. "One of them is the second apron."
And just 13 days after the team lifted the trophy, the Knicks front office told the press that they were being hamstrung by Dolan's unwillingness to spend, as Fred Katz reported at The Athletic:
The Knicks’ front office knows [that going into the second apron would restrict its ability to make trades and free-agent signings]. And yet, it also understands that dipping below the second apron would lead to much of its depth flocking elsewhere, which is why, despite Dolan’s desires, it wants to go over the second apron, according to league sources, who were granted anonymity to speak freely. But so far, Dolan has not changed his mind.
I can't recall another recent instance of a front office publicly clarifying that it wants to do something its owner doesn't, let alone the front office of a days-old championship team. As a consequence of Dolan's tightwad behavior, center Mitchell Robinson—the longest-tenured Knick, drafted by the team in 2018—signed with the Boston Celtics on July 1, the second day of free agency. Robinson is an offensive rebounding savant, crucial to postseasons past if less central to this one, but even if he walked, surely at least other, more essential players could be prioritized.
For instance: Karl Anthony-Towns, who was the team's best player for stretches of the postseason. His camp and eventually Towns himself have spent the last few weeks grumbling about contract extension talks. “Simply put, I want to do something that can keep the team together and work with the Knicks and also values me,” Towns said last week, per The Athletic. “None of those things have come close to happening.” The team announced a few days later that it would be tabling extension talks not just for Towns but all its extension-eligible players. Dolan has yet to budge on spending into the second apron. The players will receive their championship rings at the Knicks' Oct. 20 season opener against the Philadelphia 76ers.
At least Dolan's focus is in the right place. On Thursday, Madison Square Garden will host a fundraiser for New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman, as a sort of bizarre opener to a Knicks preseason game against the Toronto Raptors. The two men share a deep love of surveillance technology, as Wired has pointed out. At the Garden, according to a lawsuit by a former staffer, facial recognition technology is used to identify and track critics of Dolan; Blakeman has promised to line the border of New York City with license plate scanners and facial recognition technology due to Mayor Mamdani's "radical policies." Dolan and Dolan-owned entities have already donated millions to Blakeman's campaign, and for Thursday's fundraisers, ticket tiers are set at $10,000 ("To Attend"), $25,000 ("Friend"), and $50,000 ("Patriot"). The event is slated to begin at 6:30 p.m., and tipoff is an hour later, presumably so that New York state's biggest right-wing donors and security-state enthusiasts can refine their scouting reports on Scottie Barnes.
