Getty Executive chairman and CEO of The Madison Square Garden Company and executive chairman of MSG Networks James L. Dolan attends a New York Knicks' Summer League game.
James Dolan hopes that the NBA will remain fair to the New York Knicks even after resigning from his positions in the league’s board of governor’s committees.
Dolan’s resignation, first reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, came after his critical views on several league issues and before the Knicks launched a lawsuit against the Toronto Raptors in August, alleging them of “trade secret theft.”
“My hope is that the Knicks will be treated equally and fairly as all other NBA teams,” Dolan said in the memo obtained by ESPN. “… As you know, I am very busy with all my duties at MSG family of companies. I need to apply my time where I can be most productive.”
Dolan’s focus is now on The Sphere in Las Vegas, his new business venture. In his place is Knicks general counsel Jamaal Lesan, who has started representing him in the NBA Board of Governors meetings.
James Dolan’s Critical Views
According to ESPN, Dolan had been critical of the league’s revenue system which requires the Knicks, a big-market franchise, to share their substantially higher revenue with smaller market teams.
Last season, the Knicks’ revenue reached $506 million, a 12% increase from the 2021-22 season when they earned an estimated $452 million. The Knicks had the third-highest revenue among all 30 NBA teams behind the Golden State Warriors ($706 million) and the Los Angeles Lakers ($516 million), according to Statista.
Dolan also voted against Michael Jordan’s sale of the Charlotte Hornets that left the NBA Board of Governors without a black owner, and the WNBA expansion in San Francisco.
The two events served as the precursor to Dolan’s resignation.
Knicks Question Adam Silver’s Objectivity
In a court filing Monday, November 20, the Knicks are seeking more than $10 million in damages in response to the Raptors’ Oct. 16 motion to dismiss the Knicks’ initial complaint and have NBA Commissioner Adam Silver arbitrate the dispute.
The filing also questioned Silver’s objectivity because of his alleged “closeness” with Raptors owner Larry Tanenbaum.
“Tanenbaum serves as Silver’s boss and exercises control over and heavily influences Silver’s continued employment and salary,” the Knicks wrote in the new filing. “Among other things, Tanenbaum has been described as ‘a close ally of Commissioner Adam Silver.’ Silver himself described Tanenbaum as ‘not just my boss as the chairman of the board of governors, but he’s very much a role model in my life.’ If Silver were to preside over the instant dispute, he would be arbitrating a case for his boss and ally.”
The lawsuit stemmed from Knicks former employee Ike Azotam funneling alleged confidential information to some members of the Raptors organization led by new head coach Darko Rajaković while still under contract with the team.
The lawsuit claims that Rajaković, a first-time head coach, and the other Raptors defendants “conspired to use Azotam’s position as a current Knicks insider to funnel proprietary information to the Raptors to help them organize, plan, and structure the new coaching and video operations staff.”
According to the lawsuit, they have also directed Azotam to misuse his access to the Knicks’ subscription to Synergy Sports to create and then transfer to the Raptors defendants over 3,000 files consisting of film information and data.
The Raptors disputed that those pieces of information are publicly available information any NBA team could obtain.