The Oak Man went soft in the paint.
Former New York Knicks star Charles Oakley took a dismissal deal Friday for sparring with team owner James Dolan’s security at Madison Square Garden at the start of a Feb. 8 game.
Oakley, 54, had previously said he would fight the charges at trial. He still admits no wrongdoing but agreed to stay away from the Garden arena for a year as part of the deal.
Oakley was seen on video shoving a guard as a swarm of security surrounded him and ordered him to leave the arena.
He had paid for his own ticket but Dolan — who has feuded with the outspoken Oakley in the past — wanted him out.
Oakley was facing charges of assault, harassment and trespass.
“Like I said from day one, I wasn’t wrong,” Oakley said after taking the deal, which will see his charges dismissed and sealed after six months of good behavior.
He said a trial would benefit nobody and waste taxpayer funds.
“Why keep wasting time?” he said in Manhattan Criminal Court. “Let’s try to keep the streets better for kids instead of going to court.”
His lawyer Alex Spiro said the outcome “clearly vindicates him” and that Oakley plans to pursue “all civil remedies” against the contentious team owner.
“It shows that nobody thought he did anything wrong,” Spiro said. “It reaffirms what everybody has always thought, which was that the Garden was wrong in how they treated him, and he doesn’t need a trial to prove that because the judge just ordered it.”
Spiro called the ordeal a “personal issue between him and Mr. Dolan” and said the security guards and Oakley were “dragged into” it.
After Oakley’s controversial ejection from the Garden, the Knicks suggested the longtime fan favorite had a drinking problem.
He told cops he knocked back “a couple of drinks” before getting to the game but that arena security had been tailing him from the minute he got there.
