Toney Douglas was away from the team for a few days-- the beginning of the Mike Woodson era-- because of the birth of his son. He returned to practice today and spoke to Jared Zwerling about his season and the new regime and stuff. Here's a selection:
Q: How are you envisioning things looking ahead under Coach Woodson now?
Douglas: I'm coming here, get better, stay working, some new plays I have to pick up on. I'm learning on the fly, so that's a good thing. I know defense is the main focus. I'm real competitive on the defense end, and my offense is going to come. Whenever I get in the game, just make an impact.
First of all, I can't believe Toney went an entire interview without saying "most definitely".
Moving on, after six weeks of pretty terrible basketball and another five or so weeks of sticking to the bench, it's great to hear Toney sounding positive. Even with a new coach, It seems unlikely that he'll find his way back into the rotation this year simply because it's so late in the season and there are so few minutes to be had. One does hope, though, that whatever personal issues (perhaps something to do with Toney Jr., though I guess we better not speculate) and lingering shoulder problems plagued him earlier in the year have dissipated.
Whatever the case was, the Toney we saw in December and January just wasn't the real Toney. I refuse to believe it. That Toney didn't DWTDD, and the real TD would never not DWTDD. So, be it in an emergency this year or at some point next season (when he'll still be under contract, but Baron Davis and Mike Bibby won't be), I remain hopeful that the real, DWTDD'ing Toney will eventually return to the rotation and give the Knicks valuable minutes.