By MARC BERMAN
Mike D’Antoni didn’t exactly give a ringing endorsement this morning on Boston’s decision to sign Stephon Marbury after he clears waivers.
“I don’t know,” D’Antoni said when asked if he thinks he can help Boston. “I’m sure (he’s) a very talented basketball player. If he fits in, he’ll help.”
D’Antoni said he and Marbury didn’t speak at the hearing. “Just hello, hello,” D’Antoni said.
Quentin Richardson, Marbury’s strongest critic, reserved judgement on Marbury’s impact on Boston. “We’ll see,” Q said. “I don’t know what he’s been doing. I assume he’s been working out. Time will tell. Good luck to him.”
The players were in no mood to talk about Marbury and his buyout at the morning shootaround. Nate Robinson, when asked about Marbury, was thinking about leaping over Superman again. “We’re playing Orlando tonight,” he said.
“He hasn’t been with the team for a little while,” David Lee said. “It’s been a dead issue for us. We’re all happy it’s over with. Both sides are happy. I think the team is headed in the right direction now. We can move forward and we can worry about trying to make the playoffs.”
Asked if he’d like to see Marbury in the first round, Lee said, “”I’d love to see him in the playoffs. That means we made it.”
D’Antoni, meanwhile, said he moved on three months ago. “It’s good for everybody. It was a tough situation as we said all along and it’s come to a resolution,” D’Antoni said. ” No negatives from yesterday. It wasn’t a distraction. I haven’t been thinking about it for three months. It’s something good for Steph, something good for the front office and going on to do what we want to do in the future. Too bad it took so long but it did. I think it’s a win-win for everybody. But it’s not like now we can play basketball.”