The Knicks stopped their winless drought with a 111-97 win over the Pistons on Tuesday, benefitting from a 27-point, 20-rebound display by Karl-Anthony Towns. Despite this, the 1-3 team remains a topic of conversation for all the wrong reasons in the Big Apple.
A slight championship hangover could be forgiven following New York’s triumph in the Finals. A 1-3 record, coupled with speculation over Towns and Josh Hart’s future? Well, that’s a little harder to grapple with.
New York hasn’t been the picture of consistency it proved itself to be during last year’s playoffs. One man has faced much of the blame for that deviation — James Dolan.
With that, here are the latest rumors on Dolan and his relationship with the team, as provided by ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith on Wednesday morning.
Knicks players reportedly say no to White House visit
Smith authored up an epic diatribe against Dolan, a man he dubbed the “walking embodiment of petulance.”
Smith claimed that Dolan might be embroiled in a feud with the Knicks players amid rumors that they will reject a White House invitation.
“This is what I’ve been hearing and I’m going to say it. I don’t know how much truth there is to it because I haven’t heard from the players directly,” Smith said. “One of the things that people have been talking about around New York City…is that the climate has been a little bit different, people have been a little bit stressed. The owner James Dolan has an attitude with players because they don’t want to go to the White House.”
“The owner James Dolan has an attitude with players because they don’t want to go to the White House” – Stephen A. Smith on what he’s hearing about the New York Knicks https://t.co/ufJtKvqPjK
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 28, 2026
Smith admitted that he didn’t know whether the allegations were true. In September, head coach Mike Brown told reporters that the team hadn’t yet decided whether it would accept Trump’s invitation.
“No, it’s still something that our guys, or the organization, is internally discussing and, you know, whatever we decide to do, we’ll all do together,” Brown said, per ESPN.
Smith told his First Take colleagues that while he isn’t sure whether the report is true, he wouldn’t be surprised if it was. He also questioned Dolan’s aptitude as an owner.
“He’s the kind of guy that will sit up back and be like ‘This ring is going to last another 25 years,'” Smith said. “As opposed to a great owner like Joe Lacob or, God bless his wonderful soul, the late, great George Steinbrenner. Wasn’t satisfied with one [championship], wanted more.
“This guy Dolan, I don’t trust him. I don’t trust him one bit. I think that complacency is something he could definitely be a part of. He is petty enough to have an attitude because he’s tight with Trump and wants to go to the White House and some of the players, if not most of them, might not want to go.”
Trump and Dolan are certainly close. The Knicks owner hosted his wedding at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in 2002. He has returned the favor throughout Trump’s political career, helping bankroll his campaigns. Dolan called him a friend in a 2018 interview with ESPN. The two made the closeness of their relationship all the more evident when Dolan invited Trump to Madison Square Garden as a guest to watch the Knicks and Spurs‘ Game 3 matchup in the NBA Finals.
All of that is to say, it’s not impossible to believe that Dolan — a renowned enjoyer of surveillance tech who came under fire after a Wired investigation found that Dolan employs facial recognition to track and profile arena attendees, namely a trans woman who was targeted solely due to her gender identity, per a former security staffer — would want to impose his personal and political leanings on those who he writes his paychecks for.
Nevertheless, until we get more reporting, Smith’s insights will prove little more than rumors that swirl around New York for the upcoming season.
