In case anybody is wondering how I pass my time away from the Knicks, you can venture over to our Giants blog and get a look at what I will be spending part of my week doing for a little while.

Actually, there’s a chance I may not go home until the impressive lunch spreads cease.

I’ve helped out with our NFL coverage off and on in the past, but it’s always cool to hang around longer than a day or two and  see how another team operates.

While cruising through cyberspace this morning, I noticed a couple of people were questioning why the Knicks didn’t hang on to Taurean Green longer than 24 hours. He might very well wind up being a more suitable point guard in an up-tempo system than Mardy Collins.

It kind of comes down to scruples.

Stephon Marbury isn’t likely to be here when training camp opens, but Chris Duhon and Nate Robinson appear to be in line for the bulk of the minutes. There is no urgent need to keep a player who’s not going to contribute outside practice. Green is now free to head overseas and begin to build a better financial future.

It seems to me a message is being sent as Madison Square Garden reorganizes.

The powers that be announced the hiring of Scott O’Neil, who’s coming over from the NBA to serve as president of MSG sports. He will oversee the business and marketing operations. Steve Mills no longer has the autonomy to make important decisions. He will now serve as president of business operations for all three franchises under the umbrella.

In other words, he’s been held accountable for the role he played in hiring Isiah Thomas and promoting Anucha Browne Sanders. There’s no word on whether Magic Johnson, who reccomended Thomas for the job, will be prohibited from sitting courtside at Madison Square Garden in the future.

We’re going to have to wait and see whether the players will finally have to answer for their actions, too.

Since the Knicks have never been in the business of cutting payroll, I expected to see a lot of the questions being raised here and elsewhere in cyberspace.

A lot of you are looking for an explanation.

We didn’t have an opportunity to speak with Knicks president Donnie Walsh yesterday, so the official reasons for dealing Renaldo Balkman have not been issued. It really is first and foremost a move to cut salary and clear roster space. He was an extra piece, popular but superfluous. And we don’t know whether there were any issues beyond the business of basketball.

There’s probably a reason why he spent an inordinate amount of minutes on the bench last season.

Balkman didn’t seem to make lot of progress during the offseason, and was immediately limited by a nagging ankle injury. We never got to see him practice, so it’s not easy to define what kind of habits were on display there. Perhaps the organization did not feel he was focused and hungry. Isiah Thomas had a habit of preaching life lessons on the court and in the locker room, and might have been limiting Balkman for issues off the court.

Lots of hints were dropped last season, but nobody in the organization addressed the situation on the record.Walsh did a lot of homework before he began to shuffle the deck, and I’m fairly certain Balkman was seen as an extra piece.By not getting anything of value back in the deal, he could potentially saved about $2 million and clear two roster spots. And while cutting Taurean Green and Bobby Jones will not make a dent in the current bottom line, every dollar counts because the Knicks aren’t in a position to make a move or three and get under the salary cap by 2010.

There will be more tough decisions to make in the months ahead.This deal moves and extra piece, makes more minutes available for Wilson Chandler and Danilo Gallinari, and perhaps shows David Lee the Knicks value what he does before they all sit down to negotiate a contract extension.

Right now, that’s all we know for sure.

(AP Photo by Frank Franklin II)

The deal is done.

Renaldo Balkman is going to Denver with a sack of money for Taurean Green and Bobby Jones, who are now buyout candidates. The Knicks are getting a second-round pick in 2010, as well.

You can see where this is going.

Balkman was the kind of player New York embraces. He’s a hustler with a unique personality, but there’s not a lot of room in this new system for players who can’t shoot. The defense is always useful, but it’s about pushing the ball up the floor and scoring now.

It doesn’t sound like Green or Jones will even make it to camp.

Cutting them loose gets the Knicks down to 15 players, and saves the organization about $2 million. Denver has two second-rounders in 2010, one is coming from the Clippers. The Knicks get the higher pick.

I’m thinking Donnie Walsh is ready to move on without Stephon Marbury, and he’s exploring a number of ways to move Zach Randolph.

There’s no hurry to act in either case.And he’s got a couple of months to decide what to do with David Lee and Nate Robinson, who are both eligible for contract extensions. It doesn’t appear the conversation with either part has really gotten started. Walsh has to be careful in both cases not to disrupt plans to clear enough cap space by 2010 to pursue a marquee free agent.

The math is complicated.

And the degree of difficulty goes up if the Knicks overpay to retain Lee, who’s obviously got some value in this system. He can rebound with the best of them and is pretty good about finding a quick outlet. A consistent jump shot would make him a natural in the up-temp system Mike D’Antoni favors.

The energetic forward is also immensely popular in New York.

So what is Lee worth over the next four or five years? Can the Knicks really afford to fork over $9-plus million a season, which is what intangible players like  David West, Josh Howard and Tayshaun Prince get? Should he be paid like Udonis Haslem, who plays a similar role and pulls down $6.5 million a season? Since the Knicks drafted Damilo Gallinari to eventually play the power forward, perhaps Lee should be compensated like a role player.

Go ahead, put a number on it. 

I got a chance to do a quick interview with Anthony Roberson this morning, and he’s feeling pretty good about locking down a guaranteed contract after brief stints with Memphis and Golden State.

There were also visits to Israel and Turkey.

So what’s different about his game since he came out in 2005 that got the attention of Donnie Walsh and resulted in an offer to spend next season in New York?

“Really nothing’s changed,” Roberson said. “Every day you work on your game. Every year you want to get better. I think the NBA is all about opportunity. It’s all about somebody liking you and seeing you fit them. I knew the NBA is where I belonged and it just took that one person to realize I fit their system.”

And just so you know, his nickname is ‘Peep’.

“My dad gave me that with my young,” Roberson said. “I don’t know why, long story, I guess. My friends, everybody calls me that. Nobody calls me Anthony.”

It’s pretty obvious why David Lee is so darn popular in these parts.

He shows up.

Lee finished up a workout this afternoon, then spent time at Pace University where the Knicks were conducting a summer  camp for 140 kids. It’s part of his routine. He’s normally just a phone call away when the organization needs somebody to lend credibility to an event.

The guy even goes to Liberty games, and hows up with great enthusiasm.

Over the last three years, Lee has mastered the art of conversation. It helps reinforce an image that was built on the court where a full-tilt style of play quickly attracted what’s become a loyal following.

Still, he was a fixture in pre-draft trade rumors.

Despite the lunacy expereinced in a Knicks uniform over the last three seasons, Lee doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

“I’ve seen a lot of drama in three years on and off the court,” he said. “For me, I’ve put in a lot of time and hard work here, and kind of built a little bit of a niche. … I would love to be here when it does turn around, and be part of that resurgence because it’s going to happen soon.”

Lee had lunch with Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni recently, and sat down with Knicks president Donnie Walsh at the MSG Training Center two days ago to get a sense about where he stands.

“I wanted to get a feel from those guys if they liked me here as a player and they wanted me here,” he said.

And?

“They said, ‘Let’s not mince words. We want to have you here in New York and we love your game and how it’s going to fit in coach’s system,” Lee said.

But …

“We areed on the fact that if your main goal is to win basketball games and improve this franchise, then you’ve got to listen to all offers that come through for every player at this point,” Lee said.

Lee seems confident he will be here when training camp opens. He’s working on becoming more explosive, and is again putting up countless mid-range jumpers to gain a measure of consistency. But he’s no longer hunting for a new apartment in the city. Just in case.

It was only a matter of time.

For the last decade, the NBA has been diligently promoting the game of basketball on a global scale and the audience is growing exponentially. In some parts of the world, the sport is thriving. Ask the international scouts. There are now a dozen teams in Europe in position to pay for marquee players.

Josh Childress just signed a three-year deal worth $20 million with Olympiakos in Greece, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

It’s apparently more than what the Hawks were comfortable offering.

There’s little risk of losing established stars to overseas markets, but we shouldn’t be surprised if other rotation players follow suit and grab the money. It’s tax free. With a salary cap to deal with, NBA teams cannot get into bidding wars over mid-level free agents who believe they’re being undervalued.

We all laughed at the notion, but there’s a chance Stephon Marbury will earn another pile of money if he follows through and heads for Italy next season.

The sun was out all week on the Delaware seashore, which I can highly reccomend if you happen to enjoy miniature golf, a plate full of seafood or just kicking back in a beach chair with a good book.

Don’t forget to apply sunscreen to your feet, though.

I was back in time on Sunday to watch the final game of summer league, and have seen bits and pieces of earlier games. Truth be told, it was kind of a worthless exercise without Danilo Gallinari on the floor. Any thoughts?

Wilson Chandler looked pretty good at times. Remember, though, it’s only summer league and rotation players should be getting 18 points a game against that kind of competition. To move past Quentin Richardson when training camp opens he needs to connect from the perimeter on a consistent basis and play hard-nosed defense.

Anthony Roberson seems properly equipped to provide a scoring jolt off the bench.

Mardy Collins probably has to make some big adjustments in order to get off the bench next season. He doesn’t appear to have the kind of explosiveness required to go by defenders and initiate the Mike D’Antoni offense in a timely fashion. If the Knicks need to clear a roster spot, he might go before Jerome James.

Zach Randolph didn’t come to Las Vegas, which might be a good thing.

Let me know what you saw. Or perhaps you turned off the set once Gallinari was shut down.

I haven’t yet had enough crab dip, so here’s another guest blog from Peter Gurney, a longtime Knicks fan who’s checking in from Bedford Hills:

It was a real disappointment to find out that Gallo had been shut down for what is likely to be the rest of the summer league. Toward the end of Game 1, he was really showing the promise that Knick fans were hoping for. He handles the ball very well, and even got somebody with the God Shamgod move, a long dribble forward towards the defender, and then a quick pull back of the ball with the other hand to blow past the defender en route to the basket. His midrange jumper at the end of the game had me thinking of Dirk, but that’s getting a little ahead of myself.

Overall, it was a downer of a game. At least its not November yet. Let’s hope the injuries happening in Vegas, stay in Vegas!