[外電] Traveling Salesman, Nash Pitches Belief in Knicks
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/sports/basketball/18nash.html?_r=1&ref=basketball&oref=slogin
By VINCENT M. MALLOZZI
The Mike D’Antoni Show is coming to New York this fall, with apologies to
the Phoenix Suns.
Steve Nash, a two-time N.B.A. most valuable player and energizing force, will
be played by Stephon Marbury, a disgruntled and fading star who missed 58
performances this season for a variety of reasons, including the death of his
father, his well-publicized feuds with Isiah Thomas, and season-ending ankle
surgery.
Amare Stoudemire, a high-flying, show-stopping, thrill-a-minute dunking
machine, will be played by Eddy Curry, an overweight, slow-footed center
whose lack of rebounding and hustle earned him a seat on the bench for long
stretches.
The 6-foot-3 Leandro Barbosa, a lightning-quick shooting guard who can score
buckets of easy points in transition, will be played by Nate Robinson, a 5-9
crowd favorite who can leap tall defenders in a single bound but is an
erratic shooter and a defensive liability when his feet are planted on the
hardwood.
Nash, who ran the Phoenix offense under D’Antoni the last four seasons, was
in Midtown on Friday in his role as the founding partner of a new company,
Mission Product, which makes a skin-care line for athletes.
When Nash finished his pitch, he began comparing two casts: the up-tempo
Suns, who earned three Pacific Division titles in the last four seasons, and
the downtrodden Knicks, who have won 23, 33 and 23 games in the last three
seasons.
Nash, whose stellar play helped D’Antoni earn a four-year, $24 million deal
to coach the Knicks, said that despite what he and everyone else saw on
paper, the Knicks would be a much-improved production next season by playing
in a system that made the Suns the most entertaining show in the league.
“First of all, I think it’s a mistake to think that to play in Mike’s
system, Stephon Marbury will have to play exactly the way I play,” Nash
said. “You can play in any system and make it cater to you and you cater to
it, so the system becomes an amalgamation of the individuals and the system.
So it’s a mistake to try to envision Stephon playing like me or someone else
playing like Amare Stoudemire.”
Nash then gave an assist to Marbury, his fellow point guard.
“I think Stephon can be fantastic in that system,” Nash said. “He’s a
great athlete, a much better athlete than I am. He’s explosive and we’ve
seen throughout his career the numbers he can put up. The whole thing will
be, is he happy and successful and enjoying his basketball life again? It’s
been tough around here to enjoy yourself the past few years.”
Nash did agree that it still takes a certain kind of athlete to play in a
certain kind of system.
“It is true that you want to lean toward your preferences of players,” he
said. “But I think that if you’re a professional basketball player and a
talented and intelligent player, you can adapt to any system.”
Nash was asked if any one player on the Knicks could be productive in a Suns
uniform.
“Nate Robinson, obviously, can be a Barbosa-type player for sure, and David
Lee can play in any kind of system,” he said. “Quentin Richardson has
already played in our system.”
And then there’s Curry and the defensively challenged Zach Randolph, neither
of whom will ever be mistaken for Stoudemire, or even Shaquille O’Neal, now
in the twilight of his career.
“But at the same time, a guy like Amare is not going to get defensive
rebounds like those two guys, and rebounding is the best way to start a fast
break,” Nash said. “That’s something that we didn’t necessarily have.
Although Amare is one of the best players in the world, getting a rebound and
throwing it out is not one of his strong suits.”
Nash then glanced at the two rosters and looked up quickly.
“Now don’t get carried away with making these kinds of comparisons,” he
said with a straight face, “because you can only disappoint yourself.”
As for D’Antoni, Nash said that “people are misjudging him, thinking he can
only coach the system we used in Phoenix.“
“But Mike is very intelligent and he can coach a number of different ways,”
Nash said, adding: “The Knicks haven’t been winning, and you just can’t
turn a switch on, so you have to have patience. But Mike will put an exciting
product on the floor with a chance to win every night. No matter the cast of
characters, he’ll make basketball fun again for the players and the fans,
and that will be great for New York.”
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