That was quick. Less than a week ago, the ineffective Chris Duhon sat the entire second half as Nate Robinson led the Knicks to a win against the Wizards. Mike D'Antoni soon revealed that Robinson would be starting the Knicks' next game and for the foreseeable future. The foreseeable future ends today. From Marc Berman and his sources:
Mike D'Antoni is ready to reinstall Chris Duhon as the Knicks starting point guard, and also wants to make him a quasi-assistant coach as he seeks more input from the players.
The Post has learned Duhon and D'Antoni held an important meeting in their Cleveland hotel Saturday afternoon as the desperate Knicks coach picked his captain's brain on the Knicks' troubles for 30 minutes.
Coincidence or not, Duhon, with the club 0-2 since he went to the pine, is expected to return as the starting point guard tomorrow vs. Sacramento in their last game before the All-Star break. Nate Robinson will return to a reserve role.
Now, if you read on, there are plenty of interesting and encouraging quotations from Duhon, none of which actually insinuate that he'll be starting. Nonetheless, I guess we'll take Berman's word that Du will, in fact, be back in the driver's seat starting tomorrow (which, as Berman mentions, is the Knicks' last game before the break). Hopefully, part of the Duhon-D'Antoni summit was an agreement that Du assert himself more on the court. Perhaps that's what the role of "quasi-assistant coach" entails. We'll see how this goes, and as in the case of the original lineup change, whose minutes change with any ripple effect.