The Return and Redemption of Nate Robinson

This fall, Nate Robinson has fired up a shot on his own basket, been benched, been inartfully involved in an analogy that included Satan, been a prime target for trade talk, and been fined for his agent’s use of Twitter to agitate for that trade. Last night, he was simply amazing.

In his first game action in a month, Robinson came off the bench to score 41 points, dish eight assists, and gather six rebounds. He made 18 of his 24 shots, scored 19 of the Knicks’ last 21 points, hit a game-tying lay-up with 11 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, put what Chris Paul called maybe the move of the year on Marvin Williams (at 1:56 of the above video) to put his team up for good, and helped the lowly Knicks upset the Hawks, 112-108.

It’s a nice redemption story: Player gets into doghouse, then plays himself out of it with one sensational night. It gets even better because of what Robinson did later:

⇥Bout to get on the COD u gamers knw what I’m talking boutHe celebrated perhaps the best game he has had as a pro by playing a video game. Perhaps that makes him less driven as a basketball player. But it makes him more interesting as a person.

And it’s nice to be able to like Nate Robinson again.

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