Mr_Perfect wrote:A former employer of Dolan's in a deposition from 2002 (taken from an article on Dolan from New York Magazine in 2005):
From the statements in the deposition—if true, and given Jim’s subsequent recovery—it is possible to view the search order as the act of a concerned father. But Astarita’s deposition also paints a grim picture of life as a Jim Dolan subordinate. “He can treat people like ****,” Astarita testified, under questioning from a Cablevision attorney. “All of us, every single one of us, and he gets away with it. And why he gets away with it is because he paid us all a lot of money and we all made a great deal of money at Cablevision . . . All I can think of is him yelling and screaming all the time, all the time not listening to people’s opinions, not letting the facts get in the way of his opinions.”
This is probably exactly how he is. People just take his **** because he pays them a lot of money. I bet he verbally abuses Grunwald in meetings too.
Well, the Knicks may now have wanted Lin and just as possible is Lin didn't want the Knicks after all is said and done, though I believe he was able to deal with the media attention and willing to come back where the fans gave him such a good coming out party. But when the free agency process unfolded, Lin not only saw the writing on the wall, but likely had the normal human response after deducing the Knicks were blowing smoke up his ass and didn't want him.
In my Realism thread I discussed how Lin didn't really have the leverage to dictate to Houston what their offer would be in terms of its ability to deter a Knick's match, but by the time the contract was offered there is plenty of reason to deduce Lin at that point may have been perfectly satisfied with going to Houston instead and seeing them make it a poison pill the Knicks wouldn't match.
Why I'm saying this in response to this portrait of Dolan is it really is hitting me more and more how much Dolan is an infantile control freak and how at root his ego maybe couldn't handle Lin's fame. Linsanity as a cultural phenomenom was bigger than the Knicks as an institution and overshadowed the organization. Dolan in his dirty little heart probably feared an inability to manipulate a player whose popularity was truly unique in the history of the sport.
That is ironic in light of the value that popularity would continue to bring to the Knicks, but we've all seen that Dolan is not a rational man and he is deeply threatened by anything he can't make his bitch. Lin is really a different breed of person than many ballplayers and not really wired to be a Dolan puppet.
And if Melo really was threatened by Lin's popularity, it just adds more ego dysfunction and jealousy mitigating against Lin's return.
Dolan is a thoroughly distasteful human being. Lin's basic decency really has no place in his world.
