Tag: charles oakley

Knicks enforcer Charles Oakley calls out Sixers star Joel Embiid

New York Knicks enforcer Charles Oakley calls out Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid for the flagrant-1 foul from Game 3.

The Philadelphia 76ers were able to come up with a pivotal 125-114 win over the New York Knicks in Game 3 thanks to Joel Embiid scoring a playoff career-high 50 points. The big fella is dealing with Bell’s Palsy and dealing with a knee injury and still dropped 50 in a win.

However, a big factor in Game 3 was Embiid being called for a flagrant-1 foul on Knicks big man Mitchell Robinson in the first quarter. He grabbed Robinson’s leg while he was trying to jump and one could argue it should have been a flagrant-2 foul and an ejection for Embiid.

Back in the 90’s, the Knicks had a big man named Charles Oakley who was the team’s enforcer in a way. He would be the guy who would protect New York’s stars and do things to bother his opponents.

He spoke with NewsDay and discussed how he would handle the Embiid situation:

“I probably would have smacked him,” Oakley said.

“If I’m the Knicks, this is what I do. I’m putting him in every pick-and-roll,” Oakley said. “Make him work . . . Then you might want to set a hard pick on him. Let’s see how it feels when someone puts you out there.”

Oakley comes from an era where physical play was allowed and it was a rough and tough era. Smacking somebody in today’s game would likely result in a rather long suspension.

Either way, it’s obvious the Knicks are not happy with the Embiid play from Game 3. It will be interesting to see what happens in Game 4 on Sunday as the Sixers look to even the series.

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Charles Oakley talks Heat-Knicks playoff wars: ‘It was like Ali and Joe Frazier’

We caught up with Charles Oakley to ask him about those Heat-Knicks playoff wars, his time in New York City, Jimmy Butler and more.

Former All-Star Charles Oakley is one of the most candid, consistent and forthright people in the NBA community. A longtime friend and former teammate of Michael Jordan, Oakley became a legend in New York City with the Knicks. Often a seemingly immovable object, Oakley defended, grabbed rebounds and did the dirty work in the Big Apple as the team made deep playoff runs with the likes of Patrick Ewing and John Starks.

As such, Oakley, who recently released a new memoir, enjoyed (er, endured) many battles in the postseason. In 1997 and 1998 that meant going up against the Miami Heat and their formidable roster of players like Alonzo Mourning, Tim Hardaway, Dan Majerle, PJ Brown and more. Those matchups each went the full amount of games and resulted in major brawls, from Brown flipping Knicks guard Charlie Ward to New York’s coach Jeff Van Gundy holding onto Mourning’s leg mid-boxing match.

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We caught up with Oakley to ask him about those playoff wars. We also asked him about his time in New York City, if he’s watching the playoffs now, what he thinks about the upcoming next chapter of the Knicks-Heat matchup, how much of Jimmy Butler he’s seen this year and much more. And for more on these battles, check out Blood in the Garden by author Chris Herring or The Knicks of the Nineties by Paul Knepper.

Q&A: Charles Oakley on writing a memoir, why he is a better chef than basketball player, and more

Charles Oakley learned to cook so he knew what was wrong with the food when he sent it back to the kitchen.

When we caught up with longtime NBA big man Charles Oakley, he told us that he is actually better in the kitchen than he is on the basketball court.

That must make him a pretty good chef considering that Oakley played nineteen professional seasons, even earning an All-Star appearance in 1994 while also collecting multiple All-Defensive honors during his career.

Last month, Oakley released his life memoir, entitled The Last Enforcer: Outrageous Stories from the Life and Times of One of the NBA’s Fiercest Competitors.

Written with the help of sportswriter Frank Isola, Oakley walks readers through his relationships with the likes of Michael Jordan (who provided the foreword to this book), LeBron James, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, James Dolan, Donald Trump, George Floyd, and more.

Oakley also shares details about kicking Dennis Rodman out of a steakhouse in South Beach, an altercation with reality TV court judge Greg Mathis, and visiting Mike Tyson in prison.

The longtime NBA forward told us about the experience of writing the book with Isola, the player he feels is carrying his legacy as an “enforcer” in the modern NBA, and quite a bit about food.

Charles Oakley said Giannis Antetokounmpo would ‘come off the bench’ back in his day and that’s totally bogus

Charles Oakley is being a bit ridiculous here.

Some older NBA players like Allen Iverson, for example, show lots of love to the current era of players running around the league. Others? Well, let’s just say they’re not as complimentary of them.

But then there are guys like Charles Oakley who are just so committed to hating on today’s players that, really, you just have to respect it.

What did Oak do this time, you ask? Oh, nothing. You know. He’s just trying to convince everyone that Giannis Antetokounmpo — who might be the best player in the NBA today — would come off the bench back in his day.

Off the bench, y’all. Seriously. He went on SLAM’s Pump Fakes podcast and, not only did he say this, but he was dead serious. He believes it.

“He wouldn’t have been a force back in the day…He would’ve struggled. They’d make him shoot jump shots. He wasn’t going to be doing no eurostep to the basket…somebody was going to knock his head off. I’m glad he doing what he doing now but he definitely…he’d have come off th bench back in the days.” 

Giannis Anteotkounmpo. Coming off the bench. And getting his head knocked off when he tries to do his eurostep. Make it make sense, y’all.

First of all, Antetokounmpo’s official measurements are nuts. He’s 6’11 and 242 pounds of muscle. Nobody is knocking that dude’s head off. It’s just not happening, no matter how much we romanticize how tough players were back in the day.

He’s also bigger, stronger, taller and faster than most of the NBA today — let alone 30 years ago when Oakley was in his prime. There’s absolutely no way a two-time MVP with his skill and measurements would be coming off the bench in any era. It’s just not happening.

Now, sure. You can argue that Antetokonumpo needed to land in the right spot to have the success that he’s having. And that’s certainly true. But you could say that for just about any great who has ever played.

Oakley is being more than a little ridiculous with this one. And we love Oak over here, but this is wild. NBA fans had to get him out of the paint on this one.

Charles Oakley wants the NBA to ‘take a look’ at the Knicks

Oak has spoken.

If there’s anyone who knows what Spike Lee is going through right now, it’s Charles Oakley.

Oakley was removed from Madison Square Garden in handcuffs by security in 2017 after getting into an argument with team owner James Dolan. He was given a lifetime ban from the arena after the altercation and hasn’t been back since.

Fast forward three years later and Spike Lee is getting into arguments with ownership himself and saying he won’t watch games from MSG for the rest of the season. He’s not on the same lifetime ban tip as Oakley is, but it doesn’t feel like he’s too far away.

And, apparently, Oakley has had enough. He’s so fed up with the team that he wants the NBA to step in, he told the Associated Press.

“It’s got to be stopped in some kind of way. The NBA has got to take a look at this. You can’t keep closing your eyes to this. This is like, turn your head if you see someone beat somebody up and you just keep walking. It just keeps happening in New York. People are not going to come here because it’s the same thing over and over and over. They got a new president and all everyone is talking about what happened between Spike Lee and the Garden.”

I mean, he’s not wrong. Nobody even remembered that the Knicks won their game against the Rockets on the day they officially hired Leon Rose. It wasn’t even an afterthought — all people talked about was Spike Lee and the Knicks beef.

It’s hard to see the NBA stepping in and doing anything, really. We’ve only seen that on a few occasions, such as the Donald Sterling incident, and, uh, that ain’t this.

But the Knicks are definitely a mess and will continue to be one until someone cleans them up.

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Former NBA players come to Kevin Durant’s defense against Kendrick Perkins

Ah, yes. NBA beef. My favorite.

The NBA is certainly a fraternity of some sort, because what a fraternity without some type of beef.

On Thursday night, Kendrick Perkins and Kevin Durant went at it on Twitter. Now Kendrick Perkins is receiving blowback from all sides of the NBA world.

If you missed the Perkins-Durant feud, the current ESPN analyst sparked a dialogue by saying that Russell Westbrook is unquestionably the best player to have worn a Thunder jersey. When Durant chimed in, Perkins ripped him for going to the Warriors in “the weakest move in NBA history,” and questioned the legitimacy of Durant’s two rings.

Gilbert Arenas came to Durant’s defense with an entire dissertation about why Durant was correct in leaving, why RINGZ culture is toxic and a whole bunch of typos. Yes, I read the entire thing. Yes, my eyes do hurt.

(Warning: These interactions contain some profanity)

Basketball’s OG Charles Oakley also came to Durant’s defense, telling Perkins not to be like his dreaded nemesis Charles Barkley.

Matt Barnes also came to Durant’s defense as well, saying that everyone was entitled to their opinion but no one can deny Durant’s greatness.

Perkins actually responded to this one! He chose the “well, he started it” defense (which, technically, isn’t true).

Somehow, Perkins is cooking up a lot of beef this season. I, for one, am enjoying it. Don’t know if it’s him being on TV or if he was always just like this.

Either way, keep this party going big guy.

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