After an embarrassing story broke that the New York Knicks didn’t give their assistant coaches and key staff members championship rings this week, the organization went into damage control mode on Saturday.
“There is a great deal of misinformation regarding the championship rings,” an official statement from the Knicks claimed. “The plan has always been to distribute more than 275 rings and jewelry to the people in the organization who were part of last season’s success. As is common with many teams, the players were always supposed to get their rings as part of the opening night ceremony, and then everyone else will receive theirs in about 4-6 weeks.”
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This week, The Athletic reported that the black boxes handed out to assistant coaches during Tuesday’s ring ceremony were actually empty. All of the team’s players received their gaudy 22-karat championship rings made by jeweler Jason of Beverly Hills. The report also claimed that the coaches had not yet been fitted for rings and sources “described the assistants’ reactions to not getting rings ranging from genuine anger to annoyance.”
While it isn’t uncommon for assistants not to receive their bling on ring night, the Knicks billionaire owner, James Dolan, surely has enough money to have gotten that done in the months since their championship win. Furthermore, it is not clear if head coach Mike Brown actually received his on Tuesday night. Yet, that wasn’t the worst bit of information that came out of the report.
Many staff members received an email in September showcasing the title rings and was captioned with “Congratulations, your Employee Championship Ring is here.” However, the email was actually “a phishing test that MSG sent to see if those employees would click,” sources told The Athletic. It was the part of the story that received the most ridicule around the industry.
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The organization’s statement today also responded to the employee ring allegations.
“Regarding the phishing email, the process of securing and reminding our employees to protect our IP was not a mistake, but the choice to use the ring to do so was a mistake, and we apologize to our employees and the fans,” the statement read. “Winning the championship was a great moment for all New Yorkers. Those who choose to focus on the negative are missing the joy that comes with the team’s accomplishment.”
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