So this is where the Knicks’ new branding mission appears to be headed.
Charles Oakley, whose feud with Knicks owner James Dolan has been a black eye for the franchise in recent years, tweeted an endorsement of the Knicks hiring a branding consultant, Steve Stoute of Translation Agency.
According to an NBA source, Oakley and Stoute “are friends.”
Oakley tweeted Sunday morning, “Congratulation @stevestoute a great move by the Knicks, he will make a change.”
The change may bring Oakley back to the Garden as a proud Knicks alumni instead of an enemy spewing venom. Oakley has said his security incident has soured players on the idea of playing for the Knicks.
LeBron James gave his Stoute endorsement while in New York earlier this week.
Oakley, the legendary power forward who was famously tossed out of the Garden by security in 2017 and arrested after an altercation with security guards, went on the New York Post’s Knicks podcast in October, offering hope of a reconciliation.
“We’ll have to wait and see. We still got some things that still need to be worked out,” Oakley said on “Big Apple Buckets.” “I’m always willing to work stuff out, because I’m that type of guy. But I don’t know if the door is open. Sometimes the door’s open doesn’t mean you can come in. I’ll have to wait and see.”
According to another NBA source, the Knicks have hired a number of various consultants to help them with their brand across the past 20 years. The source said the “newsy” part of this hire is the Knicks wanted it to go public.
“Winning cures a lot of problems,” Stoute said this week in an interview with Bloomberg. “Great marketing and exciting entertainment cure all problems. The brand has to be strong regardless of the final score.”
The final scores this season have been abysmal, with the Knicks hosting the Nets Sunday with a 12-34 record. Stoute reportedly worked with the Nets franchise, too, and they landed Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, who has said it’s no longer “cool” to play for the Knicks.
The Knicks are expected to miss the playoffs for the seventh straight season.
What’s also noteworthy is Stoute gave an interview to Bloomberg while Knicks president Steve Mills and GM Scott Perry have remained mum since their postgame press conference on Nov. 10, when they put coach David Fizdale on notice for their 2-8 start. Fizdale was fired in December, but Mills and Perry have yet to face the public and are considered on shaky ground.
For more on the Knicks, listen to the latest episode of the “Big Apple Buckets” podcast:
