Brian, I know what Bird Rights are. But you’re wrong about one detail, it doesn’t allow “teams” to give you more money, it allows your original team to give you more money. My point was that I think the idea of Nate being unwilling to approve a trade because he’d waive his Bird Rights seems overblown to me when you consider that Nate Robinson’s home team hasn’t seemed particularly enamored with him and seems unlikely to resign him this summer. If they did resign him, I doubt they’d resign him for the max.

The Knicks will almost absolutely be signing and trading Nate (as it makes too much sense for both them and Nate), which is where the Bird Rights come into play, and it’s a major benefit for Nate to keep those rights.

Notice that Devean George recently wasn’t willing to give them up, and Nate is clearly a better player than Devean George (well, at least George the year in which he vetoed the trade).

Z, thanks for responding to my point. I’d still place the likelihood of Nate Robinson getting signed and traded for the max at pretty small, but I guess if that’s your best option you have to hold on to it.

Re: Nate renouncing his bird rights if he’s traded – Aren’t your bird rights only applicable to the original team? It’s seriously unlikely the knicks are going to A. resign him B. resign him for more than he would get anyone else. Do his bird rights really matter?

Bird Rights are very valuable for all players, because it allows teams to give you more money, even if they’re only signing you for relatively small deals.

It could make the difference between making, say, $5 million and $6 million over the length of a deal, and a million dollar is a lot of money, ya know?

I love how Nate fights over the top of pick and rolls, forcing moving pick fouls. He really put in a lot of effort, so that D’Antoni couldn’t remove him for Duhon.

Given how rough Duhon has been, I think Nate has earned a majority of PG minutes for the next few games — he’s one of our only players who creates match-up problems and he’s been better defensively.

Thought Hill looked okay today — glad he’s getting the backup big minutes over Bender. Since that last amazing stretch, Lee has been forcing it a bit — he was great passing the ball this game, but he’s calling for the ball too early in possessions and he’s forcing some shots and drives that lead to turnovers. He needs to get back within himself a bit. The only problem is that Lee forcing it is sometimes our best offensive option (particularly when Nate isn’t the game and Gallo isn’t demanding the ball)