Oakley Is the One Who Made the Big Difference for the Knicks

Charles Oakley could be viewed as nothing more than a brute. A big man with average basketball skills and a nasty propensity for fighting.

That is, after all, what he is -- on the surface anyway. A look deeper, however, shows Oakley to be the single difference in the emergence of the New York Knicks as a bona fide contender for the National Basketball Association championship.

In truth, the 25-year-old Oakley is a bruiser, a huge man with a bigger heart who has given the Knicks not only rebounding strength, tough inside defense and rocket outlet passes, but also an identity. A presence.

The might and fight-if-need-be posture the 6-9, 260-pound Oakley maintains is more than just a front. According to Oakley, each altercation carries this message: “I won’t take any stuff.”

“Some teams will try you. You have to show them that you won’t back down from anybody at any time. Every team needs a guy like that. Now, we have a couple of guys who could force things. I’ll take credit for it if it’s given. We have a team now that whatever happens during a game, we’ll protect each other, no matter who it is,” Oakley said.

Putting a value on such toughness in the NBA is dificult to do. But Coach Rick Pitino tried. “I’ll give you this example. Someone showed me a Rolling Stone article that quoted Rick Mahorn saying, ‘The next time we go to New York, we’re going to mess Patrick Ewing up.’ I was stunned,” Pitino said. “It was right before the game, and the first thing I did was run into the locker room to Charles. I said, ‘I don’t know if this is just hype, but if anything happens to Patrick in the game, you get in there first.’

“And sure enough, something happened with (Bill) Laimbeer, and Charles was right in there. It’s not that Patrick can’t take care of himself; he can. But when that type of thing is premeditated, you want to make sure Charles is in there.”

What is so impressive about Oakley’s willingness to get involved, Pitino said, “is that he is not only a big, physical player, but he backs it up. He’s not the type to talk a lot. He’ll do his damage before he ever says a word.”

Oakley’s aggressiveness and no-nonsense approach this season have led to shoving matches with, among several others, Utah’s Karl Malone and Philadelphia’s Charles Barkley, two of the league’s strongest players. Oakley attacked Hawks’ guard Doc Rivers in Atlanta after Rivers, in an admitted spell of “temporary insanity,” threw the ball at Oakley.

Also, Oakley choked the Hornets’ Kelly Tripucka during a scuffle in Charlotte, N.C. “On this night,” Tripucka deadpanned, “I’m a lover, night a fighter.”

All of last season, the Knicks were involved in a single fracas, at the Forum when Pat Cummings took on the Los Angeles Lakers.

Don’t get Oakley wrong. He does not use fighting as a means of expressing frustration. He knows it is not a measure of the man. It is an intangible force that shows an indomintable quality about the Knicks.

“You can’t put a value what Oak brings us,” guard Mark Jackson said. “He gives us character, an intimidation factor. His heart sets him apart. He’s a true warrior.”

“Oakley is the difference,” center Patrick Ewing said. “He does the things no one notices. He gets the rebounds, makes the long outlet passes. And he’s an enforcer. He does the dirty work.”

That includes heavy board work. His average of 10.3 rebounds a game is down from 13.1 last year, but that is primarily because he pressures the inbounds pass on the press, which often keeps him away from the basket and out of rebounding position.

In Chicago, discussions about the trade that sent Oakley to the Knicks for Bill Cartwright last summer are no taboo. Bring it up in the Bulls’ locker room and youget the feeling that it is not their favorite subject.

Only the incomparable Michael Jordan would directly address the deal, and then vaguely. “I miss him. We miss his tough attitude,” Jordan said. “We miss his rebounding. As a player and person I miss him.”

Oakley said he enjoyed living and playing in Chicago but was not disappointed to be coming to New York. “To play with Patrick and Mark, two all-star players, has made me a better player,” Oakley said. “I think I’m the same player I was in Chicago, but here I get more oppurtunities to show myself. In Chicago, they wanted Michael to do his thing and me to be just rebound. I’m more than a rebounder.”