Of course we all love the cock blocks, but Gallo is now averaging the same amount of steals as blocks per game, .9 for both.  Basically in every game I espect at least one cock block and one steal from Gallo. While he isn't exactly a master cock thief, despite his lateral slowness Gallo has been remarkably good at taking advantage of bad passes.

If anything steals and blocks have been the most consistent part of his game.  He's second on the team for blocks behind Jeffries (this is kind of depressing actually for the team but good for Gallo) and while Lee, Hughes, Duhon and Jeffries average more steals per game that's not bad for a player who doesn't typically play the lanes and rarely gambles.

I'm perfectly fine with Nate on the bench..because if we really need some energetic scoring off the bench, why not give TD a shot? I know he doesn't quite have Nate's skill, but neither one is guaranteed to be efficient; at least with Douglas we know if his shot isn't falling he will continue to hustle and contribute on the defense, while Nate will just continue to try and pull off circus tricks while opposing guards run past him or shoot over him.

I hate the "We Want Nate" chants, if there is anyone we should want, it's another undersized SG sitting on our bench.

First of all, I'm not on the fire the coach bandwagon just yet; I doubt it will do us any good at this point and as awful as I think Mike is when it comes to developing talent, he is still the type of coach that stars would love to play for.  But that is because he elts the inmates run the asylum; it worked out great when you had Steve Nash directing a group of multi-talented players, and it would likely be great with LeBron as the centrepiece, but when Al Harrington and Chris Duhon are calling the shots, there's going to be trouble.

Second of all, I refuse to jump on the "Gallo has a bad back" bandwagon either.  Maybe I'm just a blind optimist, but while he seems stiff out there even in his Euroleague highlight videos he doesn't look smooth when he's driving.  No lanky 6'10" guy is going to look smooth when they play smaller than their height, Hedo (who currently has better handles than Gallo but did not when he first came over) always looks like he's about to lose the ball and Gallo doesn't look any slower than him. Plus Gallo has shown a willingness to take contact; I think the back injury is related to his physical limitations but not because he's injured, but because he was out all summer and is poorly conditioned and weak.  He should be living in the gym.

That being said, while Gallo himself is not blameless for his passive behavior, D'antoni's bench tactics, or lack thereof are killer, especially for a young team trying to find themselves.  I was a huge fan of D'antoni, during the Isaiah years I would watch the Run and Gun Suns to keep myself from hating basketball, Steve Nash was my favourite player when every Knick I wanted to kill.  However D'antoni was always an awful, awful bench coach; people bitch about his lack of defense, sure he plays small and it leaves the paint vulnerable but his biggest problem was he just didn't know how to properly use the bench; not just his refusal to use more than 7 or 8 players, since you think that would help him if anything in the playoffs, but he just doesn't seem to know when or why to bring in a sub; Barbosa was the only consistent bench player on the Suns and he is inhumanly fast; Jordan, Toney and even Darko all might have something to add to this team, but unless they learn to have one unguardable move like Barbosa's darts to the basket, the coach seems to have no use for them.  Gallo is in the same place, he might be a starter but he's replaced by Al as soon as he makes one mistake and is only used to shoot 3's whenever he returns.

This is especially bad when you want to develop raw talent, and while Gallo is at least playing, it's kind of worrying to see our most promising player lose and not gain confidence with every game.  It's clear physically Gallo is not the finished project; I'm not expecting him to turn into the next Dwight Howard but he likely grew at least an inch since being drafted and is still growing into his body, the back injury didn't help things and it's likely, healthy or not, his back is lacking muscle.  But the biggest problem is he seems to have no set role; he's a shooting guard one minute, forward the next, point forward the next.  He has shown traces of dirk like fadeaways, insane 3 point shooting, the ability to take advantage off the dribble, great passing, defensive awareness and even a raw post game, but none with any sort of consistency.  The SG, SF and PF positions are kind of interchangeable in D'antoni's system, but when you have no floor leader to keep people involved it's every man for himself, and the young guy who still doesn't know what his biggest NBA strength will be isn't going to be able to figure it out when he only gets the ball as a last option.  Recently he seems disinterested; at the beginning of the season he was hustling on the defense, now he just stands around sulking, chucking up 3's whenever he gets the chance because without a real game plan the team is only going to use him as a spot up shooter, resulting in the Knick haters everywhere outside of New York feeding into the idea that he's nothing but another soft Euro spot up shooter.  It's frustrating, and while perhaps it's revealing Gallo's limitations, I find the coach is the primary one responsible, because Mike seems to have no objection to letting the players do whatever they want out there, expecting Duhon to magically just get it one day and transform into Steve Nash.