Knicks Will Gift Employees with Championship Rings Following Backlash Over Wild Email Debacle

Ryan Murphy/AP

The New York Knicks announced a multimillion dollar plan to provide championship rings for more than 200 employees following backlash over a fake scam email.

On Thursday night, The Athletic published a report detailing a number of issues regarding the team’s rings. In addition to assistant coaches having not received their rings yet — despite being handed ring boxes at the team’s ceremony Tuesday — it was revealed that other employees of the organization would not be getting rings at all. As noted in the report, teams often gift employees with rings even if they aren’t players, coaches, or directly involved with the play on the court.

The Athletic also reported that those employees received an email with a link to reserve their rings. The link turned out to be nothing more than a cybersecurity test, and those who clicked on them were forced to attend a class on cybersecurity.

According to a New York Post report, those employees will get rings after all. The report read:

Amid scrutiny that they ignored assistant coaches and an admission of an “unfortunate mistake” involving a cybersecurity test, the Knicks are handing out 275 championship rings to employees worth almost $4 million, The Post has learned.

The news comes on the heels of a report from The Athletic revealing that the Knicks handed empty boxes to the top assistant coaches – Chris Jent, Rick Brunson and Brendan O’Connor – during Tuesday’s ceremony.

Sources confirmed the report that assistant coaches felt “genuine anger to annoyance” about not receiving rings.

A league source also told the Post that this “was always the plan.” Additionally, a spokesperson from MSG Sports said the use of rings in the fake email was “an unfortunate mistake,” stating that the team has used similar emails in the past to simulate phishing attacks and “strengthen our security against hackers.”

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