Good morning, vibraphones.  In a combination post to cover for 1. not watching the Warriors game last night and 2. a pretty heavy dry-spell in my fanpostin' and toastin, I do share with thee an interesting piece of literature that the magnificent Alan Hahn woke my ass up with this morning.  

There's been  mucho discussion over D'Antoni's decision in the past few games to completely deprive our bouncing baby Anthony Randolph of playing time, hitting him up with two consecutive DNP-CD as of the game in Oakland.  Some say it's because of Randolph's penchant for astute knuckleheadery out on the floor; some say it's because of D'Antoni's passionate love affair with the short bench rotation. Pause.  

According to the head coach himself, it's an efficiency thing.  From the Hahnery:

D' Antoni has been criticized in the past for a lack of communication with players, but with Randolph, the coaching staff has been very clear. The 6-11 Randolph's game is extremely raw, erratic and, at this point, undefined. The Knicks would like to see him define it by observing versatile players such as Lamar Odom, Boris Diaw and Marcus Camby. "At the end of the day, you have to be efficient,'' D'Antoni said. "And we're trying to get him efficient.''

Good gravy, not again.  In Golden State, Randolph had the penthouse suite in whisky fan Don Nelson's doghouse, despite his clear talent (although raw), amazingly ridiculous upside,  and overall stretchiness.  After a few seasons of this, Nelson more or less alienated the young man through his grumpiness at Randolph's goofy mistakes.  Would D'Antoni make the same mistake with Randolph in New York?!? Say it ain't so, Mike!  But, Posters and Toasters, here it is, Alan Hahn to the rescue:

"This is a cakewalk here. I love it,'' Randolph said. "Nellie had his ways but, not to say I didn't enjoy myself out here, but this situation is a lot more easier, there's a lot more dialogue with the coaches.''

So it's only been a handful of games, and there's plenty of time for Anthony to get frustrated with sitting next to Roger Mason Jr. for a few months, but the kid understands why he's in basketball time out and is willing to prove himself before he is just handed minutes.  

The interesting thing to this cat is the idea that the coaching staff wants to refine Randolph's game through a whole lot of observin' and conservin', instead of by getting gametime burn to smooth out his rough edges.  Practice is valuable, but I don't think there's much of a replacement for getting valuable experience during games.  But hey, I have a silly name.  So take that for what you will.

Questions?  Comments?  Leave your opinions down yonder and let's get a good discussion going!

Have a nice weekend, ticklemonsters.