ESPN is reporting that Boston and marbury have mutual interest. I think I recall someone saying that if the Knicks hold on to marbury until a certain point in the season, and then cut him, he cannot play for another team on a playoff run. Anyone know if that is true? That seems to be the biggest leverage the Knicks have in getting marbury to come off his 20 mill.

Here’s the article.

The deadline for playoff rosters is in March, I forget the exact date. So yeah, that’s leverage. I’m not surprised if the Celtics have interest but I don’t see any reason why Walsh would let Marbs walk to Boston (or anywhere), just to save a million bucks. So I don’t believe the “imminent buyout” rumors. Stuff like this — Celtics, Mavs, any team whose PG goes down in the next month – would all love to have Marbury. As much as he’s hated here, he has plenty of value (to anyone not paying him $20 million).

Figure that Walsh will fully explore the trade options – like comment #15 – right up to the deadline. If the deadline passes and Marbs is still here and it’s strictly a matter of money, then we’ll see serious buyout talks.

I think I like Mardy better as an sf actually (if he could get to the rim more often)… Jeffries played a lot better the other night, but he’s still pretty limited. He’s not really a center, but as a sf or pf, Balkman or Ariza would be better. Would it be possible for him to lift a few weights? Jeez.

This might be cynical, but do you think players want to play for D’Antoni so their numbers will expand and they will then get bigger contracts later on? Or is he just more fun to play for?

I think Curry is going to “audition” for Larry Brown when he gets back into the rotation. Hopefully he won’t screw it up, and we can gain some more cap space. Either straight up for junk, or a 3 way trade with the Warriors. If we could dump Q and Jeffries too, I would be ecstatic. I really think that if we can lose every contract that isn’t Lee, Nate, Gallinari and Chandler, we could pick up 3 excellent players or Lebron and another.

I did notice Mardy and his beautiful line. 1-5, with a rebound, an assist, a turnover, a block, and 3 fouls in 20 minutes. Way to fill the box score.

a better example, which I thought of later, is that if LeBron wants to try to average a triple double for a whole season (I believe only Oscar Robertson has ever done that), he has a much better chance of doing that within the team concept while playing for D’Antoni than he would anywhere else. not a huge selling point, but something, and one that didn’t occur to me before the Simmons piece.

Jon – Didn’t we cover that pretty thoroughly when D’Antoni arrived? I feel like a lot of people here made that point. And I remember staking out a spot in the “coaches don’t really matter except if they can attract great players” camp. D’Antoni is a huge positive in that regard I think, I agree with Simmons on that.

And I agree somewhat that Nash’s performance has dropped off quite a bit this year in a new system. But he is still very good. And when he was in Dallas he directed the best offense of all time, and in fact led the first or second best offense in the league for 7 years running I think.

Simmons is a very entertaining writer, and I enjoy reading him, but it’s a difficult piece to swallow for someone who spends a lot of time thinking about advanced stats.

also, D’Antoni being the Coors Field of coaches was pretty funny, as was SSOL spelled backwards is LOSS.

Still, though, I don’t mean to suggest that there is nothing to be said for outside influences affecting statistics. Specifically, Frank, I did not mean to imply that your conclusions were off-base or anything like that – just that Simmons’ column was poorly thought out.

Sure, outside influences can affect statistics.

Off the top of my head (I could re-read the article, but what fun is that?)…
1. Suggesting that stats don’t account for increased pace, which is absurd, as they obviously do – just not the stats you see in newspapers or Fantasy Leagues.

Well, it’s not just pace with Nash. FG% is down. TS%, while still awesome, is down. Assist rate is down. Turnover rate is up. The point I was trying to make is that systems matter and a player’s stats go up and down with the quality of teammates and system. And that should be taken into account when relying too heavily on “advanced statistics”.