Eddy Curry went back door. It was a terrific move, well-executed and a good read by him. The reporters were at one end of the hallway, caught up in Wilson Chandler talking about his sprained knee ("Nothing serious," Wilson reports) and Eddy was at the other end and saw his opening. Right through the double-doors and into the elevator.
To paraphrase an old French-Canadian hockey expression, "And dere 'e was...gone!"
But, really, what else was there to be said? Mike D'Antoni said it all after the game when he was asked about Curry's curious DNP-CD against the Celtics (who employ big bodies such as Kendrick Perkins and Glen Davis). D'Antoni gave Curry's minutes to Malik Rose (20:56, 7 points, 6 rebounds).
“He’s going to have to play better than he’s shown me," D'Antoni said of Curry, who played 18:03 the night before against the Nets and had 8 points and 3 rebounds. "He’s just going to have to pick it up; he’s going to have to pick up his training."
D'Antoni then said, "I’m going to start settling into rotations and it could be that way," meaning Curry could find himself on the outside of the rotation looking in.
"The door’s never closed, but at the same time, we’re not going to lower anything that we do down to anybody," D'Antoni continued. "They’re going to have to come up to us. If they want to play, they know where they got to go."
These are strong statements by a coach who is reaching that point in training camp where tough decisions are going to have to be made and, yes, some people are not going to be happy. D'Antoni plays about 8 to 9 guys in a rotation per night in the regular season. And when Jared Jeffries and Danilo Gallinari are at full health, minutes will be even harder to come by.
From the day D'Antoni got the job and his system was coming to New York, there were immediate questions about Curry's effectiveness in a system that demands he do the one thing he just does not like to do - run. He had all summer to get his conditioning levels at all-time highs. He had his right knee scoped in March, which means plenty of time to recover and prepare.
“Obviously he missed a few weeks there early and that set him back," D'Antoni said, referring to the bacterial infection that knocked Curry out of the first week of training camp. "But there is plenty of time for him to work on it and get back into the rotation, but he’s going to have to make a heck of an effort. And I thnk he knows that and hopefully he’ll do it.”
It is here where I'll reference Tim Grover, the hoops fitness guru who runs ATTACK Athletics, which is the offseason mecca for superstars such as Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade. Early in the summer I chatted with Grover about Curry and the work he had ahead of him to get in the proper condition to succeed in D'Antoni's demanding system. Grover gave me a response that sums it up best:
"It’s never that he can’t," Grover said, "it’s, does he want to?"
