The Jerome James Quandary

Yo yo yo. Hope everyone had a great Super Bowl Sunday. I, for one, did my first real eating in 3 days (I had my wisdom teeth pulled on Friday). After 2 days of scrambled egg-gumming and water-drinking, I ate enough food to compensate for the 48 hours of deprivation. It was glorious and obscene.

Anyway, now that that petty distraction is out of the way, the sports world can focus on more important news. Namely, Isiah's benching of Channing Frye for Jerome James. Yes, James' starting spot against the Magic wasn't a clerical error or some cute little trick. Isiah is actually putting the guy into the rotation. This inexplicably cuts into the minutes of Channing Frye AND David Lee, which is a bit puzzling to us Knicks fans.(EDIT: Brian Cronin at)Knickerblogger sums the thing up very well.

Folks have been clammoring for Lee to get MORE minutes, and not only has Isiah managed to avoid putting him into the starting lineup, but now he’s going to be receiving LESS minutes!! Saturday, Lee played his fewest minutes in two weeks. I don’t mind going to the defensive-minded James for certain matchups, but less minutes for Lee is annoying.

And Balkman is just completely buried now.

There is of the course, the possibility that Isiah is trying to showcase James before the trade deadline. Says The Cavalier,

There’s a chance Zeke is just trying to showcase James so he can trade him. Unfortunately, the only person dumb enough to fall for this is Isiah himself. Thus, a space-time paradox thingie.

Yup. (Click that link, by the way, for some hilarious photoshop action).

My take? Isiah probably is trying to showcase James, but no other GM takes Isiah seriously. Jerome could come out hitting threes, dunking from the free throw line, delivering babies, and resurrecting the dead, and other teams still wouldn't call. That's just Isiah's place in the league. I hope this phase doesn't last long, though, because James has no place in this rotation. The Knicks have the rare burden of being too stacked. They somehow have too many guys at four different positions, thus making the minutes-played distribution extremely precious. I've always been pretty easy on Isiah, but if this move somehow alienates Frye and/or Lee, it's gonna be a fucking disaster. Careful, Isiah. Caaaareful!

The Knicks are back home tomorrow to take on the Clippers. I'll see you then. Peace.