This week was a joyous one for basketball, for women's basketball and for the nation of Canada. In the midst of the WNBA's second week and incredible games to start the NBA Conference Finals, the WNBA announced that its next expansion franchise would be calling Toronto its home.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself showed up for the announcement in Toronto on Thursday, as did a number of political and basketball luminaries - even former members of the Toronto Raptors were there. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert shared how Toronto was a no-brainer selection for the next franchise, something that nearly every other WNBA and NBA franchise agreed with. In fact, all 13 WNBA governors voted for the expansion, as did 29 of of the 30 NBA governors.
The one dissenting vote? None other than James Dolan of the New York Knicks.
James Dolan is the King of Petty
Now, it should technically be clarified that Dolan has recused himself from voting directly, but he is clearly the one calling the shots on how the Knicks operate. His fingerprints are all over the franchise, from personnel decisions to arena usage, and he is clearly the push behind the dissenting vote. It's the exact brand of pettiness he loves to engage in.
The New York Knicks are currently suing the Toronto Raptors for allegedly stealing proprietary information. The accusations center around an assistant video coordinator who worked for the Knicks and took a job with the Raptors. He likely did take some information with him, a practice common in the industry, and the proprietary information he is accused of taking is related to a database that all NBA teams have equal access to.
When you add in that the NBA encourages its teams to work disputes out through arbitration of the league office and not via the courts, the full picture comes into view. James Dolan felt slighted by something that happens all the time and barely hurt him, if at all, from a competitive standpoint. That pettiness led to an unnecessary lawsuit and is now spilling over into not voting for anything Toronto is involved in, including a WNBA expansion.
Dolan could also still be salty about selling the New York Liberty to Joe Trai, the governor of the Brooklyn Nets. The Liberty are now star-studded around Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart and are part of the WNBA's rise in popularity and financial viability. Adding a franchise in Toronto will help the Liberty and the entire league, and as an NBA governor he still gets some financial benefit from that, but it clearly isn't enough to break through to Dolan.
If Dolan is making a pettiness sundae, with two scoops of petty slathered with hot petty sauce, the petty cherry on top could be coming this summer. Yahoo Sports' Jake Fischer reported that it was far from certain that OG Anunoby would be re-signing in New York. The Knicks traded key young players to none other than the Toronto Raptors in December to add Anunoby, who was a key player for them until a hamstring injury knocked him out of the playoffs when the Knicks needed him the most. Now he could walk for nothing this summer, leaving the Knicks without the means to replace him and the Raptors enjoying the services of Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett.
James Dolan is a blight on the NBA, and by extension, the WNBA. The growth of women's basketball is a wonderful thing, and having another franchise in Toronto is only a good thing for the game of basketball. Dolan couldn't see that from behind his stacks of perceived slights and personal wrongs. At some point, it's all going to come crashing down and he'll be forced out of the league entirely.