To them, he already was gone and forgotten.

"He hasn't really been seen in a little while," forward David Lee said Wednesday, after the Knicks' morning shootaround. "Almost somewhat of a dead issue for us because we knew at some point it would probably happen."

Marbury's exit may have taken longer than expected — there was some surprise he was even with the team when training camp opened — but the Knicks haven't been spending much time thinking about their former captain.

"It's not like, 'Oh now we can really play basketball, we're not distracted,"' coach Mike D'Antoni said. "We weren't distracted before."

Nor does D'Antoni have any regrets about the way he handled his time with Marbury.

"We said all along, tough situation," D'Antoni said. "We weren't on the same page."