In February, retired NBA player Charles Oakley got into a bizarre scuffle with New York Knicks owner James Dolan during a game at Madison Square Garden.
The beloved former Knicks player had to be escorted from the Garden by security guards. Oakley, 54, was arrested and charged with three misdemeanor assault charges.
On Friday, Oakley took a plea deal in a New York court. He will be banned from going to Madison Square Garden for a year and must serve a six-month probation, according to the New York Daily News. If Oakley lives up to his end, the case will be dropped.
The former Chicago Bulls power forward said he was going to fight the charges in June, but later had a change of heart.
Still, he doesn’t not see the plea as an admission of guilt. “Like I said from day one I wasn’t wrong,” Oakley said after taking the deal.
It’s still unclear what precipitated the whole incident, other than the fact that Oakley and Dolan do not get along.
A day after the fight, Oakley told ESPN Radio: “I walked in the Garden. Simple. I was there four minutes, I sit down, I’m talking to people, people talking back to me. … Then about eight to 10 guys come up [and say], ‘We have orders you have to leave.’ That’s when everything started.”
