The Jim Dolan Bootleg Tapes
The result isn't just a good team; it's a functional organization. Few teams in sports produce as much drama as the Knicks. They're an entire franchise with baggage. The Rangers, though, increasingly feel like any other good team that does many things right, some things wrong, and remains competitive year after year. That likely wouldn't have happened if Dolan hadn't stayed out of the way.
Only in the last few years have the Rangers taken a real shot at a title, targeting some final pieces once the core of a good team was already in place. The signing of center Brad Richards in 2011 marked the beginning of this, and the trades for Rick Nash and Martin St. Louis — ones that were better for the short-term than the long-term — followed the same strategy. The Rangers have a timeline — one that's mostly pegged to the prime years of all-world (and homegrown) goaltender Henrik Lundqvist. The Knicks, meanwhile, routinely have hurt themselves in the long term even when they weren't particularly close to a title in the short term. (The list of draft picks they've traded away is both long and depressing.)
For what it's worth, Jim Dolan says he'll allow Phil Jackson to run the Knicks, though there are indications he won't be staying out of the team's business entirely. But Jackson (a hockey fan) has no doubt noticed the autonomy granted to his Rangers counterpart, and has surely also noticed that it's been working.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/05/how-the-rangers-win-with-jim-dolan-as-owner.html