Could it be, old Donnie Walsh could have told Jr. not to go to Europe or any place else should a roster spot suddenly free up?
I just might start to like Roberson again if Ewing Jr. came back aboard team resurgence.
Marbury is showing his true colors by refusing to accept a buyout.
This proves to me that it is all about the money for Marbury and that basketball and the city of New York mean little to Marbury in comparison. The knicks are winning without him, he is not at all part of the recent success and yet he refuses to go away. I’m sure Dolan has offered him over half of that 21+ million for this season to just leave now, but Marbury and his famously self-centered point of view will do no such thing.
All the perceived altruism of his low-cost sneakers (sneakers I still wear to this day) go out the window when you’re holding the city of New York hostage for $21.7 million. Mike D doesn’t want you, Walsh doesn’t want you, New York doesn’t want you. You claim to love our city, Marbury, but if you really did, you’d take the offer and bounce to some place else and quit rotting and sulking on the bench.
GO AWAY.
WE DO NOT NEED YOU.
You have all the money you’ll ever need Marbury. Take the offer, go play for someone else and be done with the Knicks. You have failed as a Knick, but you can still play somewhere else. GP won a chip with the Heat with less skill than you currently possess. The Knicks have already moved on without you, Marbury.
When Isiah was here we would often over-pay for people to get here, and then over-pay some more for them to go away. Walsh is showing more wisdom than Isiah by being patient when it comes to buyouts and being patient when it comes to getting someone he really wants. Isiah would just make big splash after big splash and it was never going to end.
Four year ago, Isiah bet the franchise on Marbury, but despite one of the darkest eras in Knicks history in terms of losing, Marbury is still just trying to collect.
You say you wish Larry Brown was still here, Marbury, but you treated him like crap and if you want to be like him, just take the buyout like he did. The buyout is still more than double what most NBA players will make this year. What’s Chris Paul making this year?
Now is the time to write “All Alone” on your kicks Marbury. The writing is on the wall. Might was well have it on your Starburys too.
You did it to yourself.
I can not remember the last time the New York Knicks were over .500, and I’ve been paying close attention to the formerly poorly managed team over the past eight or so years.
The buzz right now is about David Lee being benched for one game while Wilson Chandler gets the start at 3/4 (depending on your perception of exactly what Zach Randolph does for the Knicks). D’Antoni claims this was just for the match-up against Jamison (he still put up 24 and 12 against us), but when you consider that D’Antoni likes players that can shoot and are well-rounded in terms of basketball skills, I don’t think it will be Chandler’s last start of the young season, especially with the contract extension issues between David Lee and the New York Knicks.
Everyone seems to be playing well right now. I want to give credit to Walsh and D’Antoni for picking up Duhon and trusting that he can run the show. Nate Robinson has been phenomenal in D’Antoni’s system, and there was a time during the game when Crawford was on the bench and Nate was in the game and I just felt glad.
I don’t know about Roberson. If you let anyone in the NBA shoot that many threes, eventually you’ll make one, does that make you a three point specialist? Part of me wishes we’d kept Patrick Ewing Jr, but since we’re going for LeBron in 2010, how much burn would he get by then anyway?
The keepers thus far in a house-cleaning season:
Nate (second in the league in points off the bench last I checked)
Chandler (upside city)
Duhon (at least until LeBron or Wade gets to bring up the ball dressed in Orange and Blue)
Lee (a competitor, despite the slight loss of hops, he’s got the fire and desire that eddy curry wishes he could just buy)
Hey, Crawford and Randolph are playing well in the system right now, but I’d still rather move them down the road.
In the meantime, LGK.
3-2.
Who would have thought that kind of record would please Knicks fans so much? We’ve come a long way since the 90’s, when anything less than the eastern conference finals was a disappointment for knicks fans.
Was just watching the local NYC news just now when the sports portion of the program came up. They showed the Nets highlights and I was surprised to see Vince Carter can still get up so high on those lob passes, that’s impressive that at his age he can still be so athletic. The Nets lost, however.
The Knicks were the next topic. Stephon Marbury did not dress for the last game against the Sixers, and they cut to interview footage of Donnie Walsh saying he hasn’t spoken to Mike D’Antoni about it and basically did not know anything about whatever is going on between D’Antoni and Marbury. The sports crew at WCBS was highly skeptical about that claim. They also couldn’t understand if Marbs is indeed on the way out (obviously he is) why they wouldn’t want to play him to boost his trade value (especially since he’s believed to be in his best shape in years).
Another newscaster jumped in on the Knicks discussion and said “I heard it’s all Dolan, and Donnie Walsh is taking the blame for it.” I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me sooner, but this does sound like something Dolan would do. Micromanage this Knicks team after having promised Walsh full autonomy over basketball-related decisions. Dolan probably blames Marbury for the ABS trial debacle, although it was Isiah Thomas who was in the end found guilty of sexual harassment.
With the Knicks now 1-1 I’m going to make my season win prediction now of 41-41. I guess I’m the eternal optimist but I do think there are some more personnel changes in store for the Knicks before the February trade deadline. Get rid of the bad attitudes, get rid of the deadweight. Since Patrick Ewing, Jr. was none of those things, I think Walsh is off to a less than stellar start, but Duhon was a good pickup and the jury is still out on Gallinari. People who are already claiming Gallo is a bust are probably just haters. We haven’t seen enough to come to any conclusions, not about Gallo, not even about the 2008-2009 Knicks, really.
The Knicks kick out the jams in their first game of the 2008-2009 season tonight against the Heat. A prolific leader, Olympic gold medalist and 2006 NBA champion Dwayne Wade will be suiting up against the Knicks, as well as Shawn Marion and rookie Michael Beasley.
I believe in fresh starts. This is still very much the previous guy’s team, but we’ve got a new point guard in Chris Duhon, a Wilson Chandler that actually gets playing time (and is doing something with said PT) and a new front line assembly in David Lee and Zach Randolph. Where they were once seemingly mutually exclusive, they are now starting together and showing signs of what Clyde likes to call “cohesion.” Gallo may be a factor later into the season, but I doubt it will be tonight.
The Knick defense probably still blows, but the Knicks are going to put the ball in the basket, especially the seattle boys Jamal Crawford and Nate Robinson, the latter of which led the Knicks in scoring during the preseason.
The odd guys out from last year are probably going to be Stephon Marbury and Eddy Curry, but maybe one of two can be moved soon so that they can play for somebody else. All signs indicate they may not be key players in Mike D’Antoni’s system.
I have night class tonight so I’ll have to TIVO the game, but feel free to post any key observations on the game on here. Sometimes watching a TIVOed game is better than live because you can go right through free throws and commercial breaks. The key is not to talk to anyone who knows who won the game before you get home.
Howard Beck of the New York Times has a nice article out on the recent concerns of Donnie Walsh and the New York Knicks.
The Knicks still need to get down to the maximum number of players of 15. Currently they have 16 on the roster, but some of their 16 are old, washed-up expensive players that nobody wants.
Beck thinks it is down to Anthony Roberson and Patrick Ewing, with Ewing the likely candidate to be waived.
I bet it is Roberson, but wished it was Jerome “worthless for 13 million dollars” James. James has arguably been the worst Knick in decades and, for the most part, symbolizes some of the previous regime’s expensive and easily-avoided mistakes over the past four years.
If Eddy Curry isn’t careful he could be headed along that same sad path.
I really missed blogging here.
Thanks to those that wished me well with helping out my uncle overseas. The quest is almost over. We have the baby, and once we cross onto US turf, she becomes a full-out US Citizen.
Since I’ve been gone, I’ve caught zero preseason Knicks action.
For the first time in four years, I did not get to attend the annual Knicks open practice.
The stench of the previous regime’s failures have not been fully expunged from the grounds of Madison Square Garden.
And yet when I get home, I look forward to watching my Knicks play.
I’m reading Nate, Duhon and Chandler are excelling under Mike D’s tutelage. That’s good to read. I hope Chandler springs back from the knee re-injury. I’ve also read that Gallinari is going to be practicing with the team, in pain. Not so good to read. Why rush him back, especially since Chandler is producing along with Zach and Lee? I want to see Gallo play, but not at the risk of chronic back injury as a rookie.
What I do know is that D’Antoni found a pair of front court players in Randolph and Lee that actually have good chemistry and then he tried to split them up recently. I hope that is just some preseason trial-and-error because although Zach and Lee mirror each other statistically, they obviously do different things on the basketball court.
I read that Curry is in D’Antoni’s dog house. Good. Time for some tough love for E-City. Skiles tried it too with the “video games in his basement” comment and the “jump” comment, but for a completely different coach to come in and take issue with Curry’s weak work ethic and lack of competitive nature just may be the guy’s last hope. Either that, or he’ll be inspired to follow in the not-so-great Jerome James’ footsteps: sit on the end of the bench and cash the checks, and smile at the 19,763 that obviously want to kick your ass. Isiah made Eddy the first, second and third options. Not happening here. Eddy Curry needs to hang out with Charles Oakley on a regular basis to show him how to be an NBA basketball PROFESSIONAL.
As much as I enjoyed it, there is some heavy censorship in China. I had absolutely zero access to this knicks blog and to some other Knicks blogs for the entire duration of my stay. Frustrating to say the least.
The Chinese do love basketball, which is part of why I enjoyed my visit. One of the provinces I visited, Wuhan, has a huge square in the center, and a omega-supreme sized jumbotron wired with big sound that televises an assortment of government-approved programs. One night I was out to play some pickup basketball games just outside of our hotel, and they had a Rockets preseason game on in its entirety with Chinese announcers calling the game. Yes, of course, Yao has something to do with it, but Yao was not playing this night and they still showed the whole game. There were many people in that square smoking their Chinese cigarettes just watching NBA action.
I laced them up and played with the locals. At 6′3″, 207lbs, I have an obvious size advantage, but these guys are quick and strong like our own #4, but to a lesser degree. They laughed at me at first because I showed up on the good court and couldn’t speak enough Mandarin to say I wanted to play. Eventually they came over to me and asked and all I could do is make the thumbs up sign indicating that I wanted to play. We ran the court that night. Played about 15 games (they play to 7 for some weird reason) and lost only one. Every other night I showed up to play, the same team picked me up and we won most of the time. Where they were at first making fun of the odd looking foriegner that doesn’t speak Mandarin, they were giving me some of their cigarettes to celebrate (I quit 15 years ago).
NBA stuff I saw in China: Yao stuff, Jordan stuff, LeBron stuff, Kobe stuff. That was about it. You could see that basketball culture is big here, but they don’t idolize American players to the extreme that we see back home.
Oh, and to the few haters that posted here while I was gone:
lick my balls.
On Monday, at 11AM, the Knicks’ training camp will be shown live on NBATV.
The past three years, everything going into the regular season was “top secret” with reporters unable to watch practices except for the last 60 seconds of half-court hail-mary shots, the fact that the Knicks are televising a portion of their training camp signifies that Walsh has indeed altered Dolan’s famously tight media policies for the better.
I’m going to China for a while to help my uncle adopt a child. By the time I come back, the preseason will be wrapping up, and the regular season will be upon us. Here is to the Knicks having a better training camp than last year. Since no Knick is currently on trial for sexual harassment, I’d say this season is already an improvement upon the last, but we shall see.
Behind the scenes with the Knicks
Read all about it courtesy of Alan Hahn’s place.
