According to the New York Daily News’ Frank Isola, Knicks owner James Dolan unloaded on GM Stephen Mills midway thru Sunday night’s loss to the Timberwolves, and if you’re wondering why Mills caught the brunt of Dolan’s abuse rather than say, Carmelo Anthony, Isola helpfully reminds us the planet’s worst blues guitarist, “may never call his franchise player on the carpet.” Conversely, it’s the team’s dance squad who are under heavy scrutiny (“perhaps the only group that has it worse than Mike Woodson’s staff is — and I can’t believe I’m typing this — the Knicks City Dancers”)
Dolan has become such a hands-on owner — figuratively speaking — that, according to a source, he doesn’t want the dancers dancing. Crazy, right? The same guy who wanted creative input on the dancers’ outfits (and he’s good at it) apparently ordered that the girls’ roles be reduced to mostly throwing T-shirts into the crowd. They performed maybe one routine on Sunday.
Why? No one seems to know, except the standard answer is usually “that’s Dolan.”
And this is where I draw the line. Be upset all you want at the players for underperforming. But the dancers?
The KCD’s have been the model of fitness, enthusiasm and execution for two decades. The Knicks? They’ve had one good season out of the last 13.
“One minute, Dolan’s talking NBA title like a modern-day Red Auerbach and the next he is messing with the game-night entertainment like he’s Fred Astaire.” Hey, if nothing else, we know that Mr. Isola is firmly in touch with the cultural zeitgeist. In all seriousness, if Dolan — who’s supervised sub-“Community Auditions”-level game-night “entertainment” for years, scrapped all of it in a fit of pique, that’s not even close to his most draconian move. And regardless of intent, taking an axe to such bush league, infantile nonsense could be the first tasteful thing Dolan’s ever done.