Despite last night’s stumble in Houston, the Knicks are playing pretty good basketball these days and they have a legitimate shot at making the playoffs in a diminished Eastern Conference. With David Lee playing like an All-Star, Wilson Chandler and Danilo Gallinari continuing to develop, the Knicks aren’t that far from becoming respectable again. But there is one disturbing trend that has become clear this year, the coach has a problem with his communication skills.
To be fair, it started last year with the Stephon Marbury mess. But, Marbury being a malcontent was nothing new and no one gave too much thought to his side of the situation. What Marbury subsequently did is inexcusable, but D’Antoni certainly deserves some blame for alienating the former star.
This season we have seen Nate Robinson go to the bench for 14 games. Eddy Curry start to get minutes only to see them disappear and now Larry Hughes is the latest player to get sent to the bench with no idea of when he will return. Earlier this week, Hughes said this about his situation "It's easy to communicate with a grown man. It's a long season and you always want to have dialog and talk things out. I definitely want the dialog. Let guys know where they stand and you can voice opinions on both sides.”
For his part, D’Antoni doesn’t seem to think anything is wrong and the stories are little more than the New York press stirring up trouble. D’Antoni is the coach and the players need to listen to him, but the long-term future of the Knicks is only going to be successful if they can attract some premium free agents to join the team. There are a lot of reasons for a player to say no to the Knicks right now, having a coach who alienates his players cannot be one of them.
