Charles Oakley: Patrick Ewing isn't respected by staff at Madison Square Garden

Nothing about what happened on Thursday surprised Oakley

Just like he did during their days on the Knicks together, Charles Oakley has the back of former teammate Patrick Ewing. The ex-New York forward commented on Ewing getting asked for credentials at Madison Square Garden while coaching Georgetown at the Big East Tournament, despite establishing a Hall of Fame career there.

Oakley said that the organization does not respect the current Hoyas head coach.

"That don't surprise me," Oakley said on Step In The Arena. "It's a plantation over there. If you ain't doing the work for them, they don't respect you. That's all I can say. Spike [Lee], Patrick, myself, other people, fans. It's just a disrespectful situation though with him. He has a lot of notoriety, but it's just, [they] don't respect him."

After Georgetown shocked Villanova in an upset victory during the Big East Tournament on Thursday, Ewing told reporters that event staff were regularly stopping him to check his passes, much to his surprise. It became such a frequent occurrence for Ewing that he added he'd have to call Knicks owner, and MSG head honcho, James Dolan to help fix the issue.

If you were to go by Oakley's assessment as any indication, that simple phone call wouldn't just magically fix things.

However, an MSG spokesperson later released a statement saying that Dolan and Ewing "have a long-standing relationship; they spoke this afternoon and reaffirmed that. We all know, respect and appreciate what he means to The Garden and New York. Good luck to him and his Hoyas in the Big East semi-finals."

Oakley made headlines in 2017 when he got into a scuffle with MSG security  and was asked to leave the arena. Oakley said it was for no reason while reports initially alleged that he was harassing the Knicks owner.