Why Marbury has been an NBA cancer who has now been banished from the Knicks for the season

During Stephon Marbury’s rookie season with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Kevin Garnet marveled, “The best thing is that this team didn’t just get a great player when they drafted Stephon. They got a great person, too.” (NY Daily News, 1996)

In 1994, Marbury received a plaque for reportedly being a role model. “It was nice that the older people thought I meant something to the little kids,” he said.

It would be nice if older people still did think he was a role model.

Being the youngest and best of the five Marbury brothers who dominated New York prep school basketball, Marbury obviously got a lot of attention, and that attention seems to have inflated his ego and hurt his NBA career.

Marbury has been kept out of some early games and was suspended for a game when he refused to play during the Knicks’ loss to the Pistons last Wednesday.

Marbury responded by lashing out at his own teammates. He said regarding Quentin Richardson:

“He didn’t care I was his teammate when I was banished. They left me out for dead.”

Richardson said, “The main thing we want to do is we want to play basketball and win games.”

Marbury, however, is more concerned with other things, like his salary. Already being paid $21 million a year just to score 13.9 point per game, Marbury said:

“D’Antoni knew I was in my contract year and did everything they asked me to do. He’s not trying to help me. He’s trying to hurt me.”

-ESPN

Right, it’s not like Marbury isn’t trying to hurt the team by refusing to play.

Marbury could get out of his latest controversy just by taking a small buyout. Is the economy really so bad that he doesn’t have enough money?

No. Marbury craves the spotlight too much. In 2007, he went AWOL for a few games because Isiah Thomas removed Marbury from the starting lineup. In 2006, Marbury expressed his grievances about Thomas benching him for significant portions of some games.

Look, if anyone has the right to express grievances, it’s the Knicks. When you’re being paid $21 million a year and post mediocre numbers like he did (19.8, 21.7, 16.3, 16.4, 13.9 PPG respectively) then complain about playing time what do you have to complain about?

In 1999, with the Nets, one Nets player said this about Marbury:

“He gets on Kerry Kittles and Keith. He doesn’t respect them as players, and I think that hurts us. I hate to see expressions on guys’ faces now. When they walk into the locker room, their heads are down and nobody talks to anybody.

“He’s a great player. You can’t take nothing away from him. But we see right through him. Maybe it’s not even his fault. They put him in the driver’s seat, handed over the keys and said, ‘Make us go.’ At 22 years old, that’s a lot to ask.”

-New York Times, 1999

Throughout his life and his career, Marbury has been given the keys. He has yet to have gotten any team to go.

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