Here’s my speculative look at it, though. The Cavs are the #4 defense and #10 offense in the NBA so far, and tied for the 3rd best record in the league (2 games behind LA for first). The Knicks are the 23rd defense and 20th offense. I could definitely see LeBron lifting the Knicks into the top 10 and maybe even top 5 offensively, but defensively they still would have no interior presence and pretty mediocre talent. I don’t think they’d crack the top 1/2 of the league.

Maybe not, but I’m pretty sure we would win as many games as the current Cavs team.

Not every player who requests a trade is the same. Nate said the right things in the press conference after being benched, he’s continued to be the Knicks #1 cheerleader on the bench, and his agent sat down with Donnie Walsh… Nate did not whine for a trade. The big question that I cannot answer is what goes on in practice. If Nate is doing everything right in practice and just literally does not have a chance to work his way back into the rotation, then I have no problem with him requesting a trade. It appears pretty obvious that Nate’s ability to create for himself and others on offense could help this team, yet he’s not getting any chance. The fact that D’Antoni really doesn’t believe Nate could help an inconsistent offense with a bunch of bad shooters is a bit confusing. The interpretation that there is no logic in that sentiment is what’s leading so many people to feel that this is a personality thing. And in that case he’s not eating Vaseline, he just clowns around a bit. On a lot of good teams–San Antonio and Cleveland, for example–joking around is a big part of the team chemistry.

Nate Robinson is clearly not a franchise player who is going to lift the team on his back on both sides of the ball and win consistently. His ideal spot is as a 3rd or 4th guard who can bring instant offense and energy off the bench.
Is Nate being benched really the reason that Duhon started playing basketball? Is it the reason that the Knicks started shooting the lights out? It may have sent a signal that motivated guys, but I personally don’t see benching Nate as addition by subtraction. A lot of people have pointed to defense, but their defense is still not good and I have a hard time pointing to the PG defense and saying that is the reason the Knicks are winning. I would even argue that Duhon is better off guarding SGs most nights, he simply gets lit up by quick PGs.

1. In a perfect world, the Knicks would have cut ties with Marbury from Day 1 of the Walsh / D’Antoni era. They didn’t, because they didn’t want to throw away $18M (or some such ridiculous amount of money). I am guessing there was pressure from the Dolans to at least give him a shot at playing, but when it became clear to Mike what a raving lunatic Marbury was, who can blame him for what transpired next? And on Marbury’s side, why should he abandon any amount of money from a contract of that size? This type of contract dispute is ultimately meaningless. The sports media gets itself all lathered up about such disputes, but the idea that they are poisonous in any way, or affect the team’s play, or affect whether or not free agents come to New York is pretty weak sauce, IMO. Seriously, fuck Marbury. Who cares how he was treated? He was the worst kind of cancer.

2. Maybe take D’Antoni at face value? If he really thinks Nate is not conducive to the Knicks winning, and has no plans for Nate to be a part of the Knicks’ future, then isn’t this a perfectly rational course of action? To me, it doesn’t seem like such a horrible thing that other players have reason to believe D’Antoni will take extreme measures if they don’t take their jobs seriously. Lets face it, early this year, it looked like there wasn’t a Knickerbocker around who cared about playing winning ball. They have turned around and become a competitive team, which is good. Nate was always a bright spot on a terrible team, but at this point, I don’t care. Time to move on.

3. I agree, I would like to see the rookies get more burn. Any burn. My expectation and hope is that when the Knicks have played themselves out of playoff contention around Game 60, we’re going to start seeing more rookie play. I’m not sure that just throwing the rooks out there, even if it costs you ballgames, is really the right idea. A coach tries to create a winning environment. At the moment, our coach doesn’t think Nate helps the team win, and he doesn’t think the rookies help the team win. Perhaps he doesn’t believe the rooks should feel any sense of entitlement, and wants them to bust their asses to prove they belong. Or maybe he feels that they’re both marginal NBA players and that they screwed the draft. Who knows? I’d like to see some change here.

4. The Duhon thing is silly. Who else are you going to play there? We don’t have another point guard! Duhon was absolutely pitiful over the first month of the season, but sometimes you just have to let guys play through rough stretches. Especially when there is no great alternative. If you bench Duhon and marginalize him, and his replacement is no better, how does that help anything? Look, Duhon is a marginal NBA point guard, who in his best stretches looks like an average NBA point guard. It’s a bad situation and clearly not a permanent one. The team is loaded with role players. Maybe some of them will actually be around to play roles when we get a couple of stars on the team, someday.

Also, yes, it’s ridiculous that suddenly we are all in love with Jared Jeffries. As a consistently outspoken critic of his (lack of) game, I have to admit that he has been playing good, winning ball of late. But I also think, after watching this loser “play” for the last couple of years, that he’s in a hot streak and we’d be lucky to jettison him if anybody is foolish enough to think he is the real deal.

Free agents will come to New York because: MSG / NYC is a great place to play / the Knicks offer them the highest contract / they believe Mike is a great coach. So if your contention is that players secretly don’t think Mike is any good, fine, but it’s certainly not the impression one would get from the press. I also think it’s a huge logical leap to assume that any of your points are somehow utterly damning and that a star player who wants to play in New York is going to be scared into a different choice as a result.

“I… dont understand why you call D’Antoni “nasty” Irvin? Do you have a personal relationship with him or something? Has he done something to spite you in his tenure with the Knicks? What behavior of his qualifies for the adjective nasty?”

1. The way he has handled the Marbury situation – playing the guy all pre-season only to banish him when the season began. Marbury is scum – I won’t dispute that, but D’Antoni could have been honest with him (and banish him) from the very beginning.

2. The way he is handling the Nate situation. It’s obvious to everyone that this is not a regular benching for bad behaviour. This is personal and D’Antoni went as far as saying (in answering why he wouldn’t play Nate when the team desperately needed a scorer): “I’d play Satan if it helped the club win” – you interpret that any way you want.

3. The way he is gambling with the team’s future by not giving the rookies a few consistent minutes. In exchange for what? To go from 27 wins to 33 wins this year?

4. The blatant favoritism he shows for certain players (Duhon). That’s will eventually result in a divided locker room.

Those are, in short, my reasons.

“Many not-so-bright fans don’t realize how bad the situation is, but I’ll provide a clue: we have reached a point where benching Jeffries is a reason to panic, instead of celebration.

Think – if you can – about that one.”

1) you come across as an asshole in pretty much every post. if this is intentional, OK, but just giving you some feedback.

*************

I guess you can’t.

:-)

I’m not comparing Nate and LeBron in any way other than that they goof off. LeBron’s little throwing up the chalk routine or his posing in front of the camera before games??? It’s completely bush league and if he weren’t the best player on the planet people would laugh in his face. Nate is no where near as flamboyant as LeBron, but he’s also no where near as good.

Because he’s small he cannot act a certain way? Is height really what we’re using to judge players? If you’re the right height for your position you can act however you want, but if you’re short you have to be serious?

Nate has come further than others and is by any measure acceptable for NBA play.

“And he has several 55 game winning seasons.”

All with one very talented team. In his 2 full seasons outside of Phoenix he’s a combined 20 games under .500.

greatscott,

I can’t believe you are comparing Nate to Marbury. Publicly Nate has done all the right things. He’s cheered on his teammates and said that he needs to prepare better and play better in a press conference.

d-mar,

You (and just about everyone else) are seriously underestimating Cleveland’s supporting cast. They are a defensive team. The Knicks would not become the #4 defense in the league simply by adding LeBron to this roster.