Leadership
There was a lot of blame going around as James Dolan came under fire yesterday. It's time to analyze if that blame is properly placed.
I’d like to tell you a story about two leaders.
Both of these leaders are very powerful men. They are the men in charge of arguably the most powerful and storied institutions in their respective fields, and yet both of their organizations have come upon hard times.
Both leaders have received the lion’s share of the blame for this. Specifically, both leaders have come under fire from the community for not coming out and simply saying “Black Lives Matter” at any point in the last two and a half weeks. Supporters of each leader point to the fact that actions matter more than words, and that the track record of each man where black Americans are concerned dwarfs that of their more ballyhooed peers.
In response to the criticism that each leader has received, their supporters point to the media to lay blame. They claim that the media either isn’t correctly reporting the facts, or is embellishing the feelings of a select few to disingenuously shift public opinion. Some make accusations of outright lying for ratings.
They have also called out the media for a selective memory: where was this energy during the good times? Critics simply respond to these supporters by saying “open your eyes, you can’t be that obtuse.”
But the supporters of each leader subsist. They do because they love these two organizations with all of their heart, and would rather not imagine a world where things are in as bad a shape as the mainstream media makes them appear to be. Instead, supporters turn to alternative media outlets that paint a rosier picture and place the blame elsewhere, perhaps for comfort, or maybe simply to maintain one’s sanity.
I guess this is the point in the analogy where I become Fox News, or I did once upon a time at least, before I started changing my tune on the man who owns the New York Knicks.
No, James Dolan and Donald Trump isn’t a perfect comparison, but it is one that came to mind yesterday after Brian Windhorst said his piece about the state of the Knicks:
Just as many Trump supporters reached out to me after George Floyd’s murder with many arguments about why I was being too hard on the President, many Knicks fans in my mentions yesterday were saying I was being too hard on Dolan. These were people of different races, but all of their sentiments echoed two themes: Actions speak louder than words, and this is all media-driven nonsense.
In regard to the first part, yes, James Dolan hired the first all-black front office and head coach trio in league history. This is a real thing, just as the 5.1 percent unemployment rate for black Americans before this pandemic - the lowest in recorded history, and less than a third of the height it reached under President Obama - was a real thing.
Obama, of course, is widely loved, just as other NBA owners - owners who have never hired a black president or general manager or head coach - have been praised for a quick, strong message in response to the events that have been taking place around our country.
I have neither the wisdom nor the political acumen to discuss how much blame Obama should get for the black unemployment rate under his watch or how much praise Trump should get for the opposite, but I do know that being a citizen in Obama’s America made me feel a whole lot better about things than being one in Trump’s.
I consider myself a vigilant supporter of the rights of black Americans. It’s part of why I became a teacher (little did I know that my students would teach me far more than my white savior ass would ever teach them, but I digress…). Yet, I don’t feel badly for one second about supporting Obama over Trump.
That is because words matter, as does the feeling a leader gives you by how he or she goes about his or her business. Maybe it makes me a sucker and a fool for always falling for Obama’s flowery rhetoric, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t feel proud to be an American under his watch. I know many others felt the same.
Similarly, players for other organizations around the NBA speak openly about how lucky they feel to be a member of their team. We always hear about Heat Culture, Spurs Culture, and until recently, Nets Culture.
Nets Culture, it seems, meant everything to that franchise…until it didn’t. The lesson there - I think - is that while outside perception is often based on complete and utter bullshit, that perception is as important or more important than the reality within, as last summer is proof of.
The perception now exists among some players that James Dolan doesn’t support Black Lives Matter. On the day Dolan meets his maker, the truth of this perception may be entirely relevant, but in the present day where the Knicks are in the business of winning basketball games, it couldn’t matter less.
That is because the reality is that James Dolan knew he would get pushback here - first for not releasing a statement, and then for releasing one that said precisely nothing. Similarly, he knew he’d catch grief for the response to the Spike thing, and the Oakley thing before that, and the Daily News thing before that, and for kicking out fans whenever he pleases.
Just as the job of the President is to unite rather than divide a country, the job of an NBA owner is to paint your organization in the best possible light. Just as it may be unfair to give more weight to Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric than his employment numbers, it might be unfair to put so much weight on Dolan’s foibles and not pay attention to his hiring practices.
It doesn’t matter. Leaders must operate in the world as it is, not in the world they wish it to be. If Dolan knew there would be a vastly negative league-wide response to his non-statement - and unless he is completely clueless, he had to - his convictions at that moment cease to matter. You must do what you know will be best for the cause.
And the Knicks cause is, first and foremost, to win. Making other players hate you, even if those players should be paying more attention to what you are doing to advance the careers of black Americans in your organization, is antithetical to that cause.
On the media part of this, while I’ll be the first to acknowledge that Knicks for Clicks is a real thing, to accuse a journalist of Brian Windhorst’s accolades of reporting something that isn’t true is where I draw the line.
I had people in my mentions yesterday questioning whether Windy properly canvassed the entire league before making his opinion known. I’m sorry, but how is this different from questioning CNN for keeping the focus on the brutality of police officers over these last two weeks? In principle, “why doesn’t the media report more on the players who Dolan has helped” may be very different than “why isn’t CNN focusing on the bravery of cops in the current circumstances,” but I’ll be damned if I can see the difference.
There is no such thing as completely unbiased journalism, but to question the voracity of the reporting rather than focusing on the underlying issues is incredibly dangerous. You can begin to get to a point where you think the media is just making things up, even as we seemingly see things to the contrary before our own eyes. This is the slipperiest of slopes.
Of course there are players who either respect Dolan or are indifferent to him, just as there are good cops, or at least ones who aren’t bad. But just as anyone who has made the “few bad apples” argument of late, this is entirely missing the point. Why should any NBA player question the morals or the competence of an NBA owner? Don’t we as fans deserve to have a leader who doesn’t engender those fears? If even one NBA player has to question whether the Knicks owner supports the Black Lives Matter cause, it is too many.
There is no upcoming opportunity for us to vote Dolan out of office. He is here to stay for as long as he pleases, and things may get better despite his missteps. All it takes is one star in the NBA to turn things around. I still believe it can happen under Dolan, who I will say for the record should absolutely be commended for his hiring efforts. They matter, and more should have been made of it. In a perfect world, it would have been.
But we don’t live in a perfect world. It is tempting to use your frustration over that fact to gloss over the very real missteps Dolan has made, but two wrongs don’t make a right. He has shown evidence of being a champion for black Americans, and of being an incredibly stubborn individual who is a massive hinderance to the Knicks getting out of this rut. Both things can be true, and calling him out for the latter doesn’t mean ignoring the former.
In the meantime, critics will subsist, and it is in your purview to take one of two positions: either blame the messenger for focusing on the wrong things, or embrace reality, even if it isn’t the reality you want.
Just be sure to make your choice with open eyes, and realize that in doing so, you may not be all that different from another segment of the populace who loyally follows another leader they are convinced is not getting a fair shake.
What can I say…reality bites.
That’s it for this week. See everyone on Monday! #BlackLivesMatter