First people have been saying that we gave away David Lee to get AR. I don't think that is accurate. David Lee wasn't in our budget. He was gone anyway. Because we had a good relationship with David, he allowed us to get a nice payment from Golden State instead of potentially signing a deal there and having us get nothing. Everything we got for David Lee was a nice bonus... .
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Second, .AR was a project with a very high upside. In return we have to be willing to eat the time required to bring him up to speed. Mike seems to be a very good teacher to me. Anyone that doesn't give him a lot of the credit for Will Chandler's development,isn't paying proper attention. Good teaching only goes so far. The student has to be motivated to learn and willing to accept change. If the student doesn't try hard enough, I think MDA probably loses interest. The key issue is whether or not AR is working hard to learn the system. You and I both know AR's talents are particularly well suited for the system that Mike has in place. Seems to me Mike is definitely doing his part, because he certainly sees how nicely AR can fit with the Knicks.
I will say that if I was Mike I would err on bringing AR back more slowly rather than faster. The reason is that if he comes back and strikes out a second time, his value will drop further, and his self confidence will also suffer. So I think Mike is being conservative and wants to be sure it will work this time around. (I remember when Shawne was given a chance, Mike said Shawne had been playing great in the gym for a while and it took Mike too much time to pull the trigger. It will probably take Mike a while to make sure AR is ready, before bringing him back.