Marbury gets the last word
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- November
- 21
Wow.
Maybe that’s not strong enough to illustrate this moment in Knicks history.
Wow!!!
I know what you’re thinking, but the limits of good taste prevent me from hitting the keys my fingers are reaching for right now.
Did you hear what I heard? Stephon Marbury didn’t want to play against the Bucks? Really?
“When the trade went down this afternoon, I sat down with him and I said, ‘Look Steph, one of the principles is gone, Jamal Crawford, there’s 30-35 minutes out there and they’re yours if you want them. Are you ready?’ ” Mike D’Antoni noted. “He said the direction of the team went in a different direction. He wasn’t comfortable with the situation and he did not want to play.”
Huh?
“The only thing I’m at liberty to say is that I was told they were moving forward and I’m not the person who chooses who plays and who doesn’t,” Marbury responded.
It seems that somebody isn’t being truthful.
Who are you going to believe? Go ahead, vent. Do you think Marbury should even be allowed to sit on the bench now?
This entry was posted
on Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 11:38 pm by Mike Dougherty.
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Mike,
I don’t get it. Marbury refused to play?
On the trade:
I rooted for Jamal and Zach in good faith. I wanted them to be efficient as scorers and consistent as defenders. At times they rewarded my faith, but mostly they lost games because the other team had better people to predicate their play on. Losing to Boston without KG said all that needed to be said. These are the trades we needed. We cleared a whole ginormous mess of cap space!!!! We kept our prospects. We might even be better in the short term.
Free Marbury! Enough with the bullshyt from D’AnPhony, Donnie and Dolan. Marbury was told by the 3 D’s that he had a clean slate. D’AnPhony played and praised him in pre-season – and then didn’t even have the decency to speak to him face-to-face and tell him that he wouldn’t be playing him. Marbury is not property. Free him!
Marbuy is refusing to play? Can you say…Breach of Contract? I’m no lawyer. Heck, I’m not even intelligent, but can’t the Knicks suspend him, or even void his contract at this point? By my calculations, if they suspended him 10 games for this (conduct detrimental to the team), they could save 2.7 mil. Then they could just buyout the rest and they’d have their savings. I liked Marbury until this year. I bought my wife and kids number 3 jerseys. Now I just hate him. I do NOT wish him the best in the future.
At first I thought it was BS that Marbury wouldn’t play but I can kind of understand at this point. So going back, like we know, he found out he wouldn’t be playing at all this season only after sitting on the bench throughout the entire first game wondering WTF was going on. Now he understands no matter how he plays he’s on his way out. So now ‘dead marbury walking’ has a chance to run around for 1-2 games – why? Because of a few dead men not-walking kicked to the curb next to him. Wow that’s got to excite you to play. So instead of going out there with no passion just to say he didn’t act difficult, he figures better to let the guys who are ‘in the plans’ take up the slack. He could put up 20-10-10 for the next 2 games and still he’ll be sitting by Tuesday.
I can’t blame him in this case for not being motivated to play tonight. This is messing with a guy’s head no matter who it is and what his past was.
I couldn’t care less about the sideshow that is Starbury. Couldn’t care less about Fat Lazy Eddie Curry, who simply refuses to get into shape.
Both trades are excellent for this team. Don’t care that we traded our top two scorers. We can win 30-40 games with this lineup just as easily. This team is a disaster from the Isiah regime, and these are strong steps towards rebuilding this fractured franchise.
I have all the faith in the world in D’Antoni and Walsh. Love how they’re running this team. Our patience will be rewarded.
yes, someone IS lying… and the fact that D’Antoni was quoted as saying “nah, nah, I think he was in a tough situation. I’m not mad at all at Steph, I understand Steph and that’s fine” in Newsday in a Roderick Boone and Alan Hahn article (and nobody would ever accuse Hahn of slanting a story in favor of Marbury) suggests that someone is indeed lying. In fact, there seem to be no quotes at all that cite D’Antoni saying he was “furious” at all. So where is the lie? Oh yeah, it’s in the headlines. It’s pretty easy to picture a locker room where D’Antoni is frustrated at having too few players, and the press misattributing that to his conversation with Marbury, isn’t it? Come on. This is getting ridiculous. Marbury is in a crappy situation, D’Antoni is in a crappy situation, and so is Walsh. Why can’t it be written that way? Even Marbury’s biggest sin, leaving the team last year, was done (according to him) with permission, and the only source anyone cited saying this was untrue was I. Thomas, who we all know lied under oath in court! Doesn’t getting to the truth matter in journalism anymore, or is it simply about sensationalising and spinning stories to sell more papers?
Marbury should not have the option of playing or not playing! He is making 21 god damn million dollars!!! If Dantoni tells him to play than he should go out there and play as hard as he can! How does this guy have the balls to draw this much attention to himself? What an asshole, Knick fans we definitely should not be chanting bring in steph during the games! Instead we should be booing his ass until he decides he will settle for a reasonable buyout!
Harris said it and there’s no answer for that! This guy Chris has no clue what a professional is about. Marbury is paid to go in when his number is called and give it his best, regardless of his lame attitude or his malignant ego. The fact that coach has the class to cover for him and diffuse an ugly situation that doesn’t really merit all this attention only shows what kind of team the Knick fans can look forward to enjoying in the future.
can we get a post here?
I’m kind of ticked off at the hypocrisy I’m seeing from D’Antoni now that these trades have taken place.
He mislead Marbury into thinking he had a place within the rotation throughout the pre-season only to bench him for the entire season opener and then inactivating after that, citing “going in a different direction” as the reason. While I didn’t think it was the best decision from a basketball standpoint, I totally understood why D’Antoni/Walsh might have wanted to keep Marbury off the court: they wanted to play the younger guys.
And in numerous interviews D’Antoni has mentioned that his rationale was that he didn’t want to have players constantly looking over their shoulders and having undefined roles on the team. That’s completely fair and valid.
But then these trades happen that bring Al Harrington, Tim Thomas and Cuttino Mobley (depending on the physical?) to the Knicks. These trade clearly didn’t make the Knicks more competitive. They were obviously made with an 2010 free agency in mind (which I am totally on board with).
So now I’m wondering why Al Harrington is starting and Tim Thomas is the first Knick off the bench? Don’t they both play the same positions that Wilson Chandler, David Lee and Danillo Gallinari (if he ever gets healthy) also happen to play? Won’t Mobley just take minutes away from Nate Robinson? You’re telling me that this won’t be a situation where players are going to be looking over their shoulders and have doubt creep in over their respective roles?
I’m watching this Knicks/Pistons game and I’ve seen Harrington and Thomas go a combined 1-for-10 so far and not looking to pass the ball and playing their typically awful interior defense (can you guys act like you’re 6’9”/6’10” once in a while?). These guys aren’t stars (even though they both seem to believe that they are) so they really should have to earn their PT.
the Marbury situation is ridiculous. Where does someone who is paid $20 mill get away with “declining to play”. BS
The Knicks should send him packing and cut off his pay. Let him sue to get it back. Let him prove he didnt breach the contract when he declined to play. F*** him. He apparently also believes interns are supposed to be his sex toys. This is just a spoiled, rotten apple who should be chucked.
Why ARENT the Knicks voiding his contract for refusing to play?
son of Sam Snead
Steph did not refuse to play…don’t you get it?
Yes he did. Stop tonguing Marbury’s nutsack already. Get it?
Charles, you are a tool. Marbury “declined” to play TWICE.
if ever an athlete was begging to be smacked down, fired and sent home without pay, it is this overrated, overpaid, selfish lout.
does anyone know of a good Knicks blog?
I was very happy about the trades, but I went to the Cavs game and it made me worry about the development of the young players [Chandler, Robinson, Lee, and eventually Gallinari]. It seemed like their games were improving a lot while defenses had to focus more on Randolph and Crawford. Can young players develop equally on very, very bad teams?
Steph may be “overrated, overpaid, selfish” and that’s probably an accurate assessment …
...and he really is in breach of contract if it’s true that he declined to come into games that he was active for.
But it’s really foolish to blindly assume that D’Antoni is the one telling the truth in this situation just because he’s the one who has a better reputation in this league than Marbury.
D’Antoni made his decision prior to the season opener to let Marbury waste away at the end of the bench with the intention of paying him until he was traded, waived or his contract expired.
He elected not to play him against Miami and kept saying “we’re going in a different direction.” Fine. And he stuck with that. It’s not like the Knicks were undermanned once the trades occurred. They’d regularly been playing 7-8 guys a night all season. So how was it right to expect Marbury to play all of a sudden when they needed Marbury active to meet the bare minimum roster number? It wreaked of desperation on D’Antoni’s part.
Marbury may be coming off as selfish for the way that this is playing itself out. But honestly, he made the right play. If you had $21.9M coming to you contractually, and then your team told you they didn’t want you around you’re telling me you would accept a penny less than whats owed to you in a buy-out? Be honest now.
Donnie Walsh needs to settle this as quick as possible. The Knicks need that extra roster spot available. All parties need to move on.
November 21. Really? Can you write some knick blogs please
Really?
I can’t stand other bloggers covering the Knicks..please update or somthing.
This is far and away the worst Knicks blog out there. No posts in almost a full month. Ridiculous.
I agree. This is the worst Knicks blog ever. You suck Dougherty. Stick to covering football jackass!
Wow. Don’t make it personal. I’m not cool with blogging a team I haven’t been around for six weeks. Sorry. I miss it, but I gotta eat, too. Hang in there.
DVR the games give the fans stuff to talk about u dont have to be courtside to write a blog
Can we have Peter Abraham run this blog? This is a disgrace to the LoHud Blog tradition.
You still eating?? I mean, I get it, you’ve got other things you have to write, but if your going to have a blog then use it. This is ridiculous. You can’t even write something when the Knicks beat the Celts at home.. It’s Jan 5 for gods sake.
This blog has really picked up since the Giants’ season ended. Sweet.
The frustrating thing is that this used to be the BEST blog of all my teams.
I hate this blog now, Lohud should just take it down. What a disgrace Dougherty
3 days until it will have been 2 full months without a single post. Ridiculous.
So about Danilo..
Found this Knicks blog.. updated daily:
http://www.theknicksblog.com/
Dougherty, you suck. Did your job as Knicks reporter get taken away? I saw you covered high school wrestling the other day. From the penthouse to the outhouse I guess.
Dougherty is terrible. I hope he gets fired.
Good trades today by the Knicks. They got to keep Robinson & Lee and the deals didn’t effect their plans for 2010. ——-Oh, and Dougherty, have some pride…this is NEW YORK.
Great day for the Knicks. Unfortunately if you use this as you’re primary Knicks source, you wouldn’t know this and a lot of other things. Screw this guy.
http://weblogs.newsday.com/sports/basketball/knicks/blog/
this site sucks. check out subwaysports.blogspot.com for ny sports talk.
did you get fired?