"D’Antoni preached meritocracy but was far from practicing it, even while the team was mired in loss after loss. Most famously, before trading Nate Robinson, D’Antoni sat the energetic guard for 14 games with the claim he wanted players on the floor who would help the Knicks win. For the better part of the season, the Knicks were losing while Lee would barely play ‘D’, Duhon could not lead a fast, fast break, and Gallinari would just disappear. But the whipping boy was Nate Robinson who had been used to clean up many a double digit deficit granted by the starters."

"There is something that we’re not quite doing. We’re there, we’re playing pretty well, but we’re not getting over the hump. It’s bugging me and we’ll keep looking at it, keep trying to tweak things better both offensively and defensively."