NBA Reportedly Told Knicks and Nets to Stop Insulting Each Other


For a few years now, New York’s two basketball teams have lobbed verbal grenades at one another, with the front-offices and marketing departments getting involved. According to the NY Post, the NBA wants both sides to basically cut down on the childish insults: “Play nice, guys. That essentially was the directive given to owners James Dolan of the Knicks and Mikhail Prokhorov of the Nets this past season during a meeting orchestrated by NBA Commissioner David Stern, who wanted to snuff any lingering tension between the two and prevent a full-blown feud, multiple league sources said. ‘There was such a meeting and the parties both said it was a very cordial and pleasant one,’ said one league official with knowledge of the sit-down, which happened early in the season. The official also confirmed Stern assisted in getting the pair together in an attempt to prevent a wave of spitballs going back and forth over the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. See? It’s not just players like Paul Pierce and Raymond Felton fueling the feud between the two NBA teams sharing the city. It has been going on for a while, but the Nets no longer are the poor stepchild performing in a New Jersey swamp. Another person with direct knowledge of the sit-down called it ‘cordial and friendly.’ Spokespersons both for Prokhorov and for the Knicks said ‘no comment’ regarding the meeting. One source maintained Prokhorov stokes the rivalry fires because he believes the feud ‘is great for both teams’ and insisted it is ‘not at all personal’ against Dolan, the Garden chairman and Cablevision CEO.”