Oakley was one of the few people willing to talk on the record. Years ago, he claims, he was attending a game at MSG with his friend Anthony McNair. His former Knicks teammate, Hall-of-Famer Patrick Ewing, was the associate head coach on the opposing squad, and sought out Oakley before tip-off. The pair embraced, chatted briefly, and made plans to talk at the game's conclusion. Oakley and McNair said they were soon approached by security, who informed Oakley he wasn't allowed to stray from his seat or venture into areas where fans are restricted. After the final buzzer, Oakley met Ewing alone near the visitors’ locker room. There, according to Oakley, Ewing warned him about talking because listening devices were everywhere. “Don't talk too loud,” Oakley said Ewing told him. “This place is supposed to be mic'd up.” (Ewing, now a basketball ambassador for the Knicks, did not comment on this reporting.)

Oakley wasn't aware, but according to another MSG security source there were discussions about tracking Oakley, even as he traveled hundreds of miles away. “They wanted to have us doing covert surveillance operations on him,” the source says, referring to Oakley, “just to see where he was at, what he was doing at the time, to try to dig up something to use.” As a series of court cases would later allege, the Garden security’s staff viewed the surveillance of perceived enemies as a normal part of doing business.

This source and others assumed many of these directives were coming from Dolan himself. Even as Eversole grew in importance at the Garden, he stayed glued to Dolan's side—working as part of the CEO's personal protective detail and as the overseer of his vast security, intelligence, and surveillance enterprise. That gave, at the very least, the impression of someone with real influence, even if MSG Sports chief operating officer Jamaal Lesane is widely understood to be Dolan's top deputy. “He's with Jim everywhere,” says a former MSG employee, who describes Eversole as “more of an adviser to Jim than just a guy doing security.” Eversole even had an office on the executive floor.

“Jim has a very small circle of people at the top that he talks to and confides in,” this source adds. “They're together all the time.” Perhaps that proximity helps explain why Eversole would react so quickly to even the pettiest slights against Dolan."