If he's a willing and unselfish passer, he's also liable to make poor decisions with the ball.

He's a barely adequate straight-up defender, but can get lost in complicated situations — screen/rolls, showing and recovering (especially in heavy traffic). Also, quick opponents who can face-and-go with quickness tend to leave Lee in the dust.

It should be noted, however, that Lee is a natural power forward who is currently playing out of position in the center slot.

Overall, Lee is an excellent role player who will eventually improve his jumper and his defense. Also, he shows to best advantage in the Knicks free-wheeling offense and laissez-faire defense.

While he's far from being a superstar, Lee is incredibly popular with the New York fans as well as the local media. Both would be furious should the ball club not re-sign Lee when his contract lapses in 2010. The point being that Lee is worth more to the Knicks than he would be to any other team in the league.

However, the free-agent market in 2010 is so loaded with genuine superstars that the Knicks would be foolish to commit too much money too soon to Lee.

Travels With Charley

In truth, I wasn't anything more than a fairly good CBA coach. My lifetime record was 150-159, with my win-total good enough to qualify as 15th best on the all-time victory list. And by coaching in 309 regular season games, I placed 13th on that list.

However, during my six years as a head coach, I was the perpetual league-leader in one category. Technical fouls.

Most of my Ts resulted from my constant nagging and constant abuse of the refs. Although I did receive a T from Duke Callahan in Wichita Falls, Texas when he mistook a fan's loud complaints for mine.

And Danny Crawford rang me up in Omaha after my team yielded six consecutive offensive rebounds and he misheard a jocular remark I made to him: "It's like a hockey game. We can't clear the puck back across the blue line."

After the CBA and I were done with one another, however, I encountered several refs who said that my constant comments from the bench helped them to focus hard on every play. Glad to help them out.

In any event, I happened to witness with great envy the Teed-up antics of one particular coach.

I was coaching the Oklahoma City Cavalry and we were being stomped by the Albany Patroons, who were coached by George Karl. At the time, the Patroons' 16,000-seat home court was called the Knickerbocker Arena — it later became the Pepsi Arena, and is now the Capitol Arena — and only the lower stands were made available for the CBA games.

Despite having a 20-plus point lead late in the final period, and with the quarter-point well in hand, Karl was angered by an out-of-bounds call occurring in front of his bench that went against the Patroons. The miscall was totally meaningless and had no bearing on the game. Yet Karl, with the ball in his hands, stepped onto the court and began to loudly curse the refs, their ancestors, and their progeny.

ZAP! He was hit with a quick T, but that didn't stop him.

Calmly, and with admirable focus, Karl punted the ball high, wide, and deep into the upper deck! When the second T was inevitably tooted, Karl simply turned and walked peacefully and silently toward the locker room.

But what a kick! In an open field it would have traveled 50 yards or more. Man, was I impressed.

So much so, that after the Cavs had returned home, I lingered after one practice session until there were no witnesses on hand. Then I attempted to duplicate Karl's incredible feat.

But, alas, the best I could do was to either kick line drives into the courtside seats, or high pop flies that landed on the court.

That's what I got for growing up in the crowded streets of the Bronx where, instead of soccer or football, the seasonal sports ranged from stickball to kick-the-can, from Johnny-On-The-Pony to tying-up-a-little-kid-to-a-lamp-post-and-leaving-him-there.

And where we played basketball with rubber baseball-sized Spaldeens and used the bottom spaces of the vertical fire-escape ladders for our goals. Where nobody was silly enough, or rich enough, to punt the ball into passing traffic.