Marbury getting readay for a bigger audience
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- September
- 29
The rest of us get to speak with Stephon Marbury in a couple of hours, and it will be interesting to see how the lame duck playmaker is approaching the upcoming season.
I doubt he’s going to stir up any trouble.
There might be some ruffled feathers in the locker room, but keeping Marbury around makes business sense. Knicks president Donnie Walsh is reluctant to waive a talented player and send him off with $21.9 million to drop 30 and 10 on the Knicks four times over the season.
“Nobody’s come into my office and said, ‘I dont like the guy,’ ” he said.
Walsh is open to dealing Marbury so long as the contracts coming back do not derail the grand plans for the summer of 2010. In other words, this is probably going to be a process unless somebody decides the presence of a player who’s got a history of making headlines might disrupt the latest rebuilding process.
It doesn’t sound like Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni has reached that point.
He knows more changes are coming, but indicated there’s no problem investing valuable minutes in a player who’s not likely to be with the franchise beyond this season.
“I can’t say, ‘Wait until next year,’ ” he said. “That’s not my job.”
Thoughts?
Media Day kicks off at 12:30 p.m. so don’t forget to check back for the greatest hits later in the day. When that mob scene ends, they head up to Saratoga Springs to start the bonding process.
This entry was posted
on Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 8:06 am by Mike Dougherty.
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i mean… not for nothing, but if the players can handle his presence, i say give it a go. its not like a cohesive team WITH marbury has a better shot at making the playoffs than a cohesive team without him. right?
The guy has been a problem for every knicks coach not to mention he is not liked by his teammates in every city he plays in. Why take minutes away from younger guys like Duhon, Nate and Craw to passify him until his next blow up?
I’ll tell you right now, if the NYK foolishly cut Marbury, he will be in a Heat or Celtic uniform before the ink on his buyout is dry. For one season in Boston, he would be a perfect fit and could leave there with a ring, making the Knicks and their fans look like fools. Not to mention filling a gigantic PG hole in Miami. Say what you want about what has gone on off-court, but a healthy, in shape, and committed Marbury is a DANGEROUS player than can help the right team BIG time. I’d rather see him here enduring the losing right along with the rest of us. THEN and only then he can leave.
I’ve flip-flopped on Marbury a bunch over the last year. I think the team is better without him, and I’m not concerned about him going to Miami or Boston. Is anyone thinking we’re a playoff team anyway? And if he’s such a cancer on the Knicks, what’s the big deal if he goes to a conference rival?
But I’m still leaning toward wanting him on the roster this season. If he plays and is at least mediocre, he’ll have trade value mid-season. That expiring contract is gold. So either they dump him for some short term assets with contracts expiring in ‘10, or he simply comes off the books for them this season. Win/win for the franchise.
It’s just a loss for the fans who have want to cheer for this team and have to watch him play each day.
When we got Steph the questions were not about his talent. They were about his attitude, his intellect, and what we took on in salary. He was meant to be our franchise player. In that role he has failed miserably. We have a number of players who get paid like franchise players and who don’t play like it. Every year we look at them and say, “maybe this is the year that they’ll wake up and play up to their bank account”. I have very few illusions this year, however, I haven’t canceled my league pass, I was tuned in to summer league, and I’ll be tuned in preseason and beyond. I have a faint hope that as winter turns to spring I’ll still be interested. If that happens I’ll consider this season a success.