Charles Oakley: Jail would be better than Knicks pretending to be nice

Charles Oakley went off on James Dolan in an interview with SI.

Charles Oakley said Thursday in an interview with SI’s Maggie Gray that the fallout from his ejection from Madison Square Garden has been so negative that he would have rather gone to jail than have the Knicks act like they’re doing something nice for him.

“I’d rather go to jail and just do two or three years for my assault case and come out and be a better person,” Oakley told Gray on SI Now. “Don’t give me something now because everything is bad. That’s what’s wrong. We cover stuff up because of money and power. This is a people issue. People see this.”

Oakley was charged with three counts of misdemeanor assaults and one count of criminal trespass after his skirmish with Garden security. 

In the same interview, Oakley compared Knicks owner James Dolan to former Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who was ousted after the emergence of a racist audio tape. 

Dolan banned Oakley from the Garden indefinitely after last week’s incident but NBA commissioner Adam Silver and Michael Jordan brokered a truce between the parties.

Correction: This story originally said the charges against Oakley had been dropped. They have not been dropped.