James Dolan probably isn’t giving any thought to selling the Knicks so soon after winning his first championship, but he might be one of the few owners with a chance to top the record price that the Lakers sold for this week, Justin Girshon of Newsday writes in a subscriber-only piece. Daniel Roberts, editor-in-chief at Front Office Sports, tells Girshon that the L.A. team’s $12.5 billion valuation in the deal will benefit all NBA franchises, but the Knicks are especially valuable because of their market size coupled with last season’s success.

Girshon notes that there was an immediate impact in the stock market, as shares of Madison Square Garden Sports jumped by 5.25% after the Lakers’ sale agreement was announced, closing at a new high of $414.12 and posting the largest one-day percentage increase since February 18.

“I think it just opened the eyes to maybe more shareholders that here’s another data point in the soaring valuations in the NBA,” said Kurt Badenhausen, a sports valuations reporter for Sportico.

Girshon points out that the Knicks ranked third at $9.75 billion in Forbes’ most recent list of NBA franchise valuations. Golden State was on top at $11 billion, with the Lakers second at $10 billion. Badenhausen called those three teams “in a league of their own” in terms of value.

There’s more on the Knicks:

• Charles Oakley’s assault-and-battery lawsuit stemming from his removal from a 2017 game at Madison Square Garden has been dismissed for a third time, per Michael McCann of Sportico. U.S. Circuit Judge Richard J. Sullivan granted summary judgment to MSG on Friday, determining that Oakley failed to provide corroborating evidence that security guards assaulted him during the incident. Sullivan wrote that “as the videos of the incident reveal, it was Oakley — who is six feet, nine inches tall and weighs roughly 270 pounds—who struck the guards, not the other way around.” The case isn’t over, as Oakley’s attorneys plan to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which has overturned Sullivan’s dismissals of the lawsuit two other times.
• MSG Sports will wrap up the process of splitting the Knicks and Rangers into separate publicly traded companies by end of October, according to Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic (Twitter link). MSG Knickerbockers Corp. will include the Knicks and their G League affiliate in Westchester. Making up MSG Rangers Corp. will be the NHL’s Rangers, the American Hockey League’s Hartford Wolf Pack and MSG Training Center. Dolan will serve as executive chairman and CEO of both entities.
• The Knicks have released a five-game preseason schedule, relays New York Basketball (Twitter link). It includes games at Philadelphia and Toronto, plus home contests against Washington, Minnesota and Toronto.