NBA Insider with Ken Berger

I saw this coming.

I always -- always -- welcome your comments. Even if you don't agree with me. Really, especially if you don't agree with me. That's how we get some good give and take going here and shed light on issues that are important to the team you care about, the Knicks.

But some of you are piling on again and accusing me of being a Marbury hater and saying the coach was a coward for not playing him last night.

Let me try to explain this one more time. But first, let me show you that I'm not the only one who believes Marbury needs to be kept in the past, and is not part of the future.

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, writes, "Marbury is done. New York is moving on, leaving Starbury, a make-believe franchise player, in its wake."

George Willis of the Post writes, "Nothing his team did on the court will impact their season as much as the message D'Antoni delivered a day earlier by announcing Eddy Curry was out of the rotation indefinitely. .... No longer will playing time be handed out based on contracts and perceived status. Not under D'Antoni's watch. By benching Marbury and Curry, the coach has made it clear the Knicks will have to earn their way into his lineup, which is welcome news to Garden fans who watched this team sleepwalk through the past two years under Isiah Thomas."

Harvey Araton of the Times writes, "By benching Stephon Marbury along with Eddy Curry in his Knicks coaching debut at Madison Square Garden, D’Antoni moved the Knicks beyond Isiah Thomas’s faux franchise players in the real-life equivalent of seven seconds or less.

"He made a decision that was cold, if not hard, and didn’t look back, or down at the end of the bench, where an emasculated Marbury sat. He didn’t waver when the New York crowd experienced amnesia and mustered sympathy for one its own, chanting “We Want Steph!” or when the Knicks nearly sabotaged their energetic performance before holding on Wednesday night to beat the Miami Heat, 120-115. ... Tiresome as it is, this story does not go away until Marbury finally does."

Mike Lupica of the Daily News writes, "On the night when the Knicks wanted to at least begin to move away from the past, from the worst basketball era in the history of Madison Square Garden, here was Marbury becoming a scrub. Here he was listening from the end of the bench as some people chanted "We Want Steph!" in the third quarter while others chanted, "No, We Don't." For this night, put the new coach down with the ones chanting for Marbury to stay right where he was."

Chris Sheridan of ESPN.com writes, "Even on an opening night when he shouldn't have been the story, he was still a big part of the story, a piece of the past that doesn't fit in with the new furniture but is still adorning the middle of the living room, distracting everyone from the other refurbishments.

"And until he leaves or blows up (the smart money is on the latter happening before the former), there will be a distraction surrounding this team that'll continue to take some of the glow off what hopefully, for long-suffering Knicks fans, will be a long, enduring parade of 120-point scoring nights."

So we've established that I'm not the only one, that this isn't some sort of vendetta or personal, sinister grudge. When I returned to covering the NBA after some years on football, I made a pact with myself to give Marbury and Isiah Thomas a fair shot. Let the past be the past and form my opinions of them based on the present.

I have been fair to Steph -- and more than fair to Isiah -- if you go back and research my columns. But this is about the here and now, about a new era for a new coach who is in a very difficult situation and doesn't need to be distracted by the stink bombs that have torpedoed every one of his predecessors.

The part about D'Antoni needing to move forward with his guys, and about how those guys will only respect him if he leaves Marbury behind, should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention. But I can give you better, more tactical reasons why Marbury needs to sit. Despite the fact that everyone seems to think he fits D'Antoni's system, he doesn't. He didn't in Phoenix, which is why the Suns traded him to the Knicks before D'Antoni took his third breath as their coach. And he doesn't fit now.

If you read Alan Hahn's insightful piece breaking down how D'Antoni's offense works, it should be obvious why Marbury doesn't fit in it. The slightest hesitation in the flow of the set and movement of the ball causes the whole thing to break down. You have to think fast and play fast in D'Antoni's scheme. Dominating the ball, dribbling and dribbling, and looking for your own shot first simply doesn't work.

That is why Chris Duhon is D'Antoni's starting point guard, and why whatever minutes Marbury ekes out will be at the two, not the one. Marbury can still be useful in certain situations, but the message from D'Antoni is clear: This is about his system and the Knicks' future, not about Marbury's stats and the Knicks' past.

How anyone can say what D'Antoni did last night was cowardly is beyond me. It took courage and toughness to send the message he sent by benching Marbury and Eddy Curry. The important thing now is, D'Antoni has to be consistent. Even if things turn south, even if Duhon averages six turnovers a game, there is no turning back.

For this reason, Marbury never should have started the season in a Knicks uniform. There should have been a clean break with the past. But D'Antoni's desire to move on without him was scuttled by Marbury's minuscule trade value and James Dolan's refusal to write one more enormous buyout check. So Marbury is here. D'Antoni has to deal with him. The good thing is, the coach gets to decide who plays.

That's not cowardice. It's toughness and resolve, which have been in short supply around here for too long.