Posted by oohah:

I will do my best. I have no emotion vested in this team. When I watch I want them to win but these recent years have left me devoid of caring. So when I watch its with Luke warm interest.

1) Can anyone tell me why Marbury was played in the Pre-season then benched? Was he benched on basketball merits? Everyone plays in the preseason that is able. Whether its for a show case or whatever. Also he wasnt benched. He's not part of the regular season rotation.

2) Can anyone tell me how winning is paramount when we have 1 guard left who can penetrate with Marbury benched and he is 4'6"?
MD wants to play and teach the guys in his current rotation. I think his point was as far as lessons go winning was paramount. As opposed to having a winning season being paramount. His point was winning is paramount so long as its in the context of teaching and the future.

3) Can anyone tell me how winning is paramount when coaches go out of their way to humiliate players and create drama? Does D'Antoni realize he is starting a fire that can easily turn into an inferno that can consume yet another season?
He said Curry was out because of conditioning and not being ready to play. As for Marbury I think he wanted a training camp/preseason as distraction free as possible. Seems like Marbury understands pretty good. He is not in the plans and the Knicks arent going to pay him $20 to play for the Heat.

4) I don't feel sorry for Marbury. I feel sorry for us. Yet another season when the coach as other agendas than winning games.
Whats the agenda? Seems pretty open to me. They want to build and evaluate. This part is evaluate. They have had open practices, mikes in the huddles, open locker rooms. Everything is open open open. What is being hidden?

5) Trust me, the first time Crawford goes stone cold, Duhon is shown to be a very un-dynamic PG who can't get to the basket whose prefered shot is to jack it from 5 feet behind the 3 point line, the press and fans will begin to turn on D'Antoni, and he has shown he doesn't handle press criticism well in podunk-town Phoenix.
Thats NY. ARod and Jeter have been booed. Ewing was booed. Fans through his posters on the court. It happens. MD will say "We knew this was going to be tough at times and just need to keep working." He's got the support of his GM BIGTIME, who I suspect has the support of Stern. They are big boys

6) Trust me, the press buzzards are sharpening their claws!
Can it be worse than it has been? Honestly?

Yeah, Marbury did not play, and our guys were flat out exhausted in that 4th quarter and it nearly cost us the game. I'm not so sure we can prosper with a 9 man rotation. We played 10 and after the game Mike said that's too many and he'd cut it down to 8 or 9.

If you're going to do that then be prepared for numerous teams steamrolling us in the 4th Q as a broken down Miami team went for 40 on us in the 4th.

Is Marbury the answer? Of course not but he should play before Mardy who is a disaster - OR - the guy should be waived.

We don't need to start another fiasco here and while Marbury HAS been the good soldier he hasn't been rewarded for doing so and that means he will eventually go off about it - and rightfully so.

Part ways before it gets to that. Enough with Walsh and his stupid I don't do buyouts crap. 22M of Marbury gets you 22M of garbage that's signed until 2013. Just bite the bullet and waive the guy OR play him.

imho, too much is being made of this.

this is marbury's last year here no matter what. and if he starts problems, he will be sent home. d'alsh ain't f'ing around. so he has to deal with it. i don't think there's any reason to overanalyze at this point. the media has been sh tting on the team for years (deservedly so) so any more fuel they try to throw into a fire ain't gonna do much in terms of how dolan/d'alsh will react to things. marbury's time here is done. the only question is when...

Posted by djsunyc:

imho, too much is being made of this.

this is marbury's last year here no matter what. and if he starts problems, he will be sent home. d'alsh ain't f'ing around. so he has to deal with it. i don't think there's any reason to overanalyze at this point. the media has been sh tting on the team for years (deservedly so) so any more fuel they try to throw into a fire ain't gonna do much in terms of how dolan/d'alsh will react to things. marbury's time here is done. the only question is when...

If it's done then make it official. He's 100x the player Collins is. No excuse to sit Marbury in favor of Collins. If that's the direction we want to go then you make it official right now and waive him. Enough with the bull**** this franchise has done in the past with players. This is Isiah like to the core. We don't need this. Marbury does not deserve that treatment. Waive him and move forward. Why play games? Why make him uncomfortable to try to force him to accept a lower buyout? Why embarrass him? Why play a disaster in Collins over him with a straight face?

I don't care how much anyone hates Marbury this is not the way to do things.

Play him or waive him.

Posted by Cosmic:

Yeah, Marbury did not play, and our guys were flat out exhausted in that 4th quarter and it nearly cost us the game. I'm not so sure we can prosper with a 9 man rotation. We played 10 and after the game Mike said that's too many and he'd cut it down to 8 or 9.

If you're going to do that then be prepared for numerous teams steamrolling us in the 4th Q as a broken down Miami team went for 40 on us in the 4th.

Is Marbury the answer? Of course not but he should play before Mardy who is a disaster - OR - the guy should be waived.

We don't need to start another fiasco here and while Marbury HAS been the good soldier he hasn't been rewarded for doing so and that means he will eventually go off about it - and rightfully so.

Part ways before it gets to that. Enough with Walsh and his stupid I don't do buyouts crap. 22M of Marbury gets you 22M of garbage that's signed until 2013. Just bite the bullet and waive the guy OR play him.

Cosmic, I disagree fully. First off, being fatigued in the first pre season game should hardly be an issue. These guys should be conditioned enough, in my mind, to be playing 48 minutes a game. It's called being a professional athlete. There's no excuse for the defensive letdown at the end of the game.

Secondly, if anything, Mardy Collins needed to play more ti disrupt DeQuean Cook and/or Mario Chalmers from their offensive rhythm. They are NBA newbies and they were torching us. There's no way Marbury would have stopped them. Collins IS the good enough defensive player to do it.

Also, I do agree we had a couple of stupid offensive possesions at the end, but only a couple. Plus Jamal missed some free throws, just as Steph would have missed free throws.

I said it once and I'm saying it again. Steph is out of the circle!

Posted by Allanfan20:

Posted by Cosmic:

Yeah, Marbury did not play, and our guys were flat out exhausted in that 4th quarter and it nearly cost us the game. I'm not so sure we can prosper with a 9 man rotation. We played 10 and after the game Mike said that's too many and he'd cut it down to 8 or 9.

If you're going to do that then be prepared for numerous teams steamrolling us in the 4th Q as a broken down Miami team went for 40 on us in the 4th.

Is Marbury the answer? Of course not but he should play before Mardy who is a disaster - OR - the guy should be waived.

We don't need to start another fiasco here and while Marbury HAS been the good soldier he hasn't been rewarded for doing so and that means he will eventually go off about it - and rightfully so.

Part ways before it gets to that. Enough with Walsh and his stupid I don't do buyouts crap. 22M of Marbury gets you 22M of garbage that's signed until 2013. Just bite the bullet and waive the guy OR play him.

Cosmic, I disagree fully. First off, being fatigued in the first pre season game should hardly be an issue. These guys should be conditioned enough, in my mind, to be playing 48 minutes a game. It's called being a professional athlete. There's no excuse for the defensive letdown at the end of the game.

Secondly, if anything, Mardy Collins needed to play more ti disrupt DeQuean Cook and/or Mario Chalmers from their offensive rhythm. They are NBA newbies and they were torching us. There's no way Marbury would have stopped them. Collins IS the good enough defensive player to do it.

Also, I do agree we had a couple of stupid offensive possesions at the end, but only a couple. Plus Jamal missed some free throws, just as Steph would have missed free throws.

I said it once and I'm saying it again. Steph is out of the circle!

Marbury is an able body. He's worlds better than Mardy Collins. Our team fell apart due to exhaustion and could have used an able body out there.

So you either play Marbury or you waive him. This benching crap will lead to nothing but problems for us. That's one thing we can all count on.

He is not Anthony Roberson who will get the minutes given to him and like it so don't treat him like that.

Waive him.

Posted by misterearl:

Q. Was he benched on basketball merits?

A. Of course not. He was benched for getting a tat on his dome.

answerman, now that steph has his *iron mike* tat, what comes first: steph biting off duhon's eddie munster ear in practice or steph beating chris *blood* childs face in at a bodega?



[Edited by - djsunyc on 10-30-2008 11:31 AM]

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by nysportsfan11:

The Knicks are between a rock and a hard place and Marbury put them there. All this sympathy leaves out one thing...it's HIS fault.

The only players I feel bad for in this situation are the guys that are actually playing. The guys that are out there busting their asses and get a small blurb that the Knicks actually won buried in the middle of another Marbury dissertation from the hacks that cover this team.

Steph doesn't deserve a cookie for being a professional about his situation THIS year. This argument of "he's been a good soldier and hasn't done anything wrong" is bull****. It's like the ******* parent who rewards their kid for doing their homework. You're a gotdamn grown man, nevermind someone's father...you're SUPPOSED to show up to camp in shape. You're SUPPOSED to be a good teammate. You're SUPPOSED to let the coach do HIS job.

If he hadn't been an ******* every other year, he wouldn't be in this situation. His expiring would have been extremely valuable if he was what his career stats say he is. He'd have been somewhere else right now playing 30 minutes per. Instead, he's made a name for himself as a coach killing, locker room enigma with maturity problems...at 31 for goodness sakes.

This is just the chickens coming home to roost. All this coddling is what's wrong with the NBA. The only leverage a coach has is minutes. Had a coach had the balls to use that leverage on Steph years ago, maybe we wouldn't be in this situation now. You think players would have had **** to say to Red about his minutes? Riles? Van Gundy? As long as he gets paid on the 1st and 15th, the Knicks don't owe him ****.

I subscribe to this assessment too. The other thing I find funny is the people saying D'antoni is showing who's boss. Plenty of coaches would have handled the Marbury situation by now if not for the fact that each tme they tried it was considered insubordination or sabotage. The reason that MDA has this sort of power is because finally have a GM that would give it to him.

Is freezing Marbury out a little disruptive? Sure, just like the mood of a household is disrupted when a child is grounded. But the alternative is ongoing behavioral problems.

We don't know the specifics in play here, but I do believe MDA is expressing long-term interests in the club and isn't doing this out of pettiness. One has to figure that what we know about Marbury's negative impact on the team - which is more than enough - is just the tip of the iceberg.

good post fellas. I have been a fan since 1981, when I first really started understanding the game as a kid. that was 27 years ago, and no titles for me to enjoy. 2 finals appearances but no titles. since then, my yankees have won 4 WS titles, the knicks and jets 0. So I understand the futiltity as a knick fan, and every year that goes by without even making the playoffs, tends to harden your heart towards this team. I haven't gotten to that point, not after all of these years of dissapointments and being suckered by management over the years. But this go around I feel a little different. I like what I see comming from walsh and D'antoni. I watch steph sabotage this team last year, with his threats toward his GM and coach. I watched the year before his beef with brown and how that sabotaged another year. So benching marbury is no big deal. If he helps this team, great, if he is benched, great, as long as we are competing and building and learning, I could care less about marbury. As you said, will this be a little disruptive? sure it may, but it will prove benificial in the long run. This should have been done years ago.. Like gary payton said last night. It is a message to curry and steph. no longer are we going to let these negative influeces have any impact on this team.. and we won without them. keep it moving..

McK1 - The press does not run the Knicks. Who cares what they attempt to stir up in their quest to gain attention to sell more papers?

The scrutiny comes with playing in New York. Everyone understands that.

D'Antoni will serve notice in the only place that counts. The locker room.

Get in line dudes. It's about to get real.

The only thing that matters is in the assists column. How many assists were there? 26 last night?

I can live with that.