http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/sports/basketball/james-dolan-wont-be-punished-for-email-to-knicks-fan-nba-says.html?emc=edit_th_20150210&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=31957207
James L. Dolan, the Knicks’ owner, will not face discipline from the N.B.A. over a vitriolic email he sent in response to a critical fan, a league spokesman said Monday.
Dolan, whose team had lost 41 of 51 games entering Monday night, has not commented publicly about the franchise this season, quite likely adding to the criticism of him on social media and in various publications after the email was posted Sunday on the website Deadspin.
The N.B.A., as a general rule, does not consider impassioned responses from team owners — or players, coaches, executives or anyone else in the league — toward criticism to be grounds on their own for discipline. And Dolan’s note did not contain any vulgar language, which most likely helped in shielding him from potential action by the league.
Donald Sterling was removed as owner of the Los Angeles Clippers after an audio recording in which he made racist remarks became public in April. Then, in September, Danny Ferry went on leave from his job as general manager of the Atlanta Hawks after it was revealed he had made racist comments, which he attributed to another person’s scouting report of a player, during an organization conference call.
The N.B.A. made clear that Dolan’s email was not as serious as those other episodes.
Asked about the email during an interview with The New York Post, the league’s commissioner, Adam Silver, called Dolan a “consummate New Yorker.”
The confrontation began when Irving Bierman, 73, sent an email to Dolan’s personal account with the subject line “I have been a knicks fan since 1952.” The message criticized Dolan’s tenure as the team’s owner, questioning his business acumen and encouraging him to sell the team.
Dolan, in an email dated Jan. 23, called Bierman “a sad person” and wondered whether Bierman was an alcoholic.
“You most likely have made your family miserable,” wrote Dolan, who finished the note with a suggestion that Bierman start following the Nets “because the Knicks dont want you.”
Both men signed their emails with “respectfully.” Bierman’s son sent the exchange to Deadspin.
Silver, summarizing the situation and addressing the league’s decision not to discipline Dolan, told The Post, “Jim got an unkind email and responded with an unkind email.”
Email and social media have increasingly given fans direct lines of communications to professional sports teams, coaches and owners. And public figures, believing that interactions they consider private will remain that way, continue to find themselves under unpleasant scrutiny.
“Despite all of the warnings, all of the evidence to the contrary and all the material floating around proving otherwise, people still think that when they’re sitting alone typing something out, they know exactly who their audience is,” said Lee Rainie, a Pew Research Center specialist in the social influence of digital technologies. “But the specific character of digital information is that it’s replicable, repeatable, and there are lots of outlets now that are interested in these stories.”
Rainie said that while tools like Twitter and Facebook had made public figures more approachable than ever, people still acted differently on digital media than they did in person, an impulse that can land them in hot water.
Last season, Carmelo Anthony of the Knicks responded angrily to a person who had told him via Twitter that it was becoming frustrating to root for him. In a message that was reposted tens of thousands of times on Twitter after it was sent, Anthony called the fan a vulgar name and said he never asked for the fan to root for him anyway.
Anthony, speaking to reporters while with the Knicks in Miami on Monday, expressed some sympathy for Dolan.
“We all have those moments,” Anthony said.
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