As the man banking $6 million annually to give marching orders to an odious outfit winding down yet another disastrous season, Mike D’Antoni, you’d think, would make himself scarcely seen and heard. Lucky for us, he’s big on both — because today’s tome was shaping up to be more mundane than usual.
For those who required sedation when their NCAA brackets got blasted to smithereens, the Knicks coach engaged in a “Gee Whizzing” contest over the weekend with a disenchanted trainee who was recently excised.
But later for how D’Antoni graded Jordan Hill when the Rockets browsed New York for 40-something minutes before deciding to shoplift a win. First, let’s focus a flash on how he partially excused himself from deploying the 6-foot-10 rookie for more than token appearances.
Patronizing the press, D’Antoni said, “Jordan was in a position, if you noticed, where we had Al [Harrington], Jared [Jeffries], David Lee, [Darko] Milicic for a while. We had about five guys. Rookies are usually in the pecking order of the last guy.”
You mean behind Milicic — a guy who played fragments of eight games and saw 71 minutes of activity, including a season-opening 17, good for seven rebounds, four points, three assists and three steals?
You mean the Knicks’ lone perpendicular, unadulterated center, who got marooned on D’Antoni’s driftwood island for 45 games before being traded to Minny Ha Ha, ahem, where he’s now starting and averaging 10.3 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.2 assists in their last four losses.
In peaked condition, Milicic, nonetheless, has banged the boards loudly for eight or more five times since joining the Timberwolves. Friday night, Darko dented the Lakers for 16 points — downing a three to tie matters late in the third — and 12 rebounds.
I repeat, vs. THE LAKERS!
Considering how quickly and relentlessly D’Antoni got down on Darko, how, pray tell, was it possible the No. 8 in last June’s draft got positioned in a plot to the rear of the unused Serbian soldier?
Only Eddy Curry buried himself deeper in the backwoods.
Hill’s plebe indoctrination was, shall we say, consistently inconsistent. Many DNP’s sprinkled with a few double-digit daylight tours of duty. In two dozen sightings for Camp Cablevision, he averaged about 10½ minutes per, four points and 2½ rebounds. Though Hill’s all-out aggressiveness in games disproved the contention, sources say D’Antoni didn’t feel he worked all that hard in practice.
Hence, Hill’s transfer to Houston — as part of the three-team, Tracy McGrady diversion — where he’s averaging 8.6 points and 6.0 rebounds over the last five games.
During Sunday’s brief Broadway run, Hill maintained he couldn’t make an impression as a Knick because D’Antoni “doesn’t like to play rookies.”
No, countered the coach, “I don’t like to play bad rookies.”
Way to diss the guy that drafted him … and hired you.
Donnie Walsh is too nice to respond publicly to D’Antoni’s flagrant foul, so I’ll do it for him.
“That’s right, Mike, but you have no problem playing bad veterans.”
“In all fairness,” D’Antoni confessed, Hill “didn’t get a great chance.” He tainted his admission by adding (yes, he did), “but we’re trying to thread the needle and make the playoffs.
“I do like Jordan. I think he’ll be a nice player in the league. But that’s as far as it goes. For the record, I do like rookies. I like good rookies.”
I’m wondering whether James Dolan finds it amusing Hill is good enough to play quality time and contribute meaningful statistics for an authentic Western Conference playoff contender, yet was unable to crack the sacred rotation of a habitual Eastern Conference slouch.
If it even dawns on him.
Hill, as you might’ve heard, later posted his own punctuated message. As a lovely parting gift, he went for a career-high 13 points and five rebounds in 25 minutes after logging 27 (11 and 6) in Friday night’s loss at Boston.
In fact, Hill played 20-plus minutes in six of the last seven games before last night, and the Rockets had won six.
“I’ve never been a keen judge of talent,” D’Antoni must be thinking to himself. “However, I’m dynamite in the swimsuit portion of the program.”
Column contributor Phillip Marmanillo gets the last words on the Knicks:
“You’d have to say that Toney Douglas’ recent play gets Walsh off the hook for not drafting Brandon Jennings. And you would also have to say that Hill’s recent play puts the hook right into D’Antoni’s mouth.
“Had D’Antoni developed Hill and maybe Darko, too, Walsh wouldn’t have felt forced to make desperation moves at the trade deadline (costing the franchise prime real estate in two drafts) to create more cap space. He could not go into free agency with no big man and not enough money to sign an elite free agent and re-sign David Lee.
“Had the Knicks hired Mark Jackson, not only are Hill and Darko still Knicks, they’re flourishing. Toney, too, who’s finally at the point!
“What I like most about Jackson is he understands how to get the most out of limited talent. His entire career is evidence of that.
“Did Walsh put together a playoff team that D’Antoni refused to play?”