Calling his client’s eight-game stint on the bench “personal” with Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni and his brother Dan, an assistant, Nate Robinson’s agent Aaron Goodwin said Saturday night he plans to ask team president Donnie Walsh to get Robinson out of New York.

“At this point, there’s no way I believe this is purely basketball related,” Goodwin said via telephone from his Oakland, Calif., home. “There’s got to be something personal in there.
“Prior to this season, Nate Robinson said he thought there was some discontent for him from both D’Antonis.”
Mike D’Antoni has insisted it isn’t personal, saying Friday, “The only thing I don’t want to get into is it’s a personality thing, that I don’t play a guy because (of that).” He was not asked about Robinson after Saturday’s practice for tonight’s game against Charlotte and couldn’t be reached Saturday night.
Walsh, however, said Goodwin called him Saturday night and, “We agreed to talk about it. I’m open to talking about it because I understand Nate doesn’t feel like he’s playing and he’s in the last year of his contract. So we’ll discuss trading him.”
Yet, besides trading a player who, as a restricted free agent last summer, signed a one-year deal to stay with the Knicks worth $4 million (almost double last season’s salary), plus a $1 million playoff bonus, the two sides also could agree on a contract buyout.
That could be the easiest way out, for a trade brings into play several issues.
First, Walsh remains adamant that he won’t trade for anyone (except in an extraordinary circumstance) with a contract that extends beyond this season, in order to preserve the Knicks’ salary-cap space for next summer.
Robinson also can veto any trade, although Goodwin said, “For a trade to the right place, he’d accept a trade.”
Doing so, though, would mean voiding a labor provision that would allow the team that trades for him to exceed its salary cap to re-sign him after this season, when he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
Standard buyout protocol, meanwhile, means the Knicks likely would save the difference between Robinson’s salary and what he would get from a team that signs him, likely in the $1 million range of the veteran’s minimum salary.
Goodwin said the last straw for his client, whose various behavioral issues have sullied his relationship with the Knicks, was Thursday’s game in Chicago, when Goodwin said that while the Knicks struggled offensively, “The coach never even looked to Nate Robinson.”
Also Saturday, Robinson’s newest bench-buddy Eddy Curry expressed his own ire at not playing in Friday’s victory over the Clippers, although at first he adopted the diplomatic tone Robinson has expressed about his benching, saying, “Nobody’s ever happy not playing at all. But I’m happy we won.”
But when asked if he got an explanation why he didn’t play, Curry’s tone changed.
“No,” he said. “I’ve stopped trying to understand things. I just kind of roll with the punches. I’ll continue to try to be ready, but I’m not going to try to understand.”
Then he turned sarcastic, saying, “I’ve just got to keep going hard at practice and whatever minute or two I get out there, try to do something to make me stay on the court and that’s it.”