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Nalod
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USA
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New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
The fall of a Starbury
By FRANK ISOLA & MICHAEL O'KEEFFE
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITERS
Sunday, March 19th, 2006
Kurt Thomas was still months away from joining the Phoenix Suns when he stood side-by-side with Amare Stoudemire as they waited for Stephon Marbury to shoot free throws during a game last season.
The former Knick does some of his best work on the blocks, chatting up opposing players the way a first baseman talks to base runners. He's made Shaquille O'Neal double over with laughter; he's brought smiles to the faces of the NBA's grouchiest referees.
And on this night, Thomas cracked up Stoudemire by telling the Suns forward something he'd been pondering for weeks: "I can't stand playing with Stephon Marbury."
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Twenty-seven months ago, the kid from Coney Island thought he had fulfilled a lifelong dream by coming home to play for the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. The Patrick Ewing era was over and the electrifying run to the 1999 NBA Finals was fading into ancient history.
When Marbury returned to New York in January 2004, Knicks fans believed the explosive point guard who had been a hoops star since his days at Brooklyn's Lincoln High would jolt new life into an aging and uninspired team. Some even believed Marbury would deliver the NBA championship that had long eluded the team.
As the Knicks limp toward the end of what might be the worst season in team history, it's painfully obvious that Marbury isn't the savior of the franchise. The one-time schoolboy hero may now be the most reviled athlete in New York. Fans no longer cheer him - instead, they see him as a cancer in the locker room, an overpaid malcontent who would rather snipe at coach Larry Brown and feud with his teammates than do whatever it takes to win.
The words "excellence" and "commitment" are tattooed on Marbury's body, a constant reminder that he displays neither, certainly not this season.
"It hasn't worked out the way everyone thought it would," says Mark Jackson, the former Knicks point guard who has known Marbury for years. "Stephon Marbury came in with a lot of baggage and hasn't found success in New York. But this is a collective effort. There is plenty of blame to go around."
Several team sources say the only way Marbury can survive is if Larry Brown leaves first, and considering Brown's nomadic history, that's possible. But Brown has repeatedly vowed to return, and the $40 million he's scheduled to make over the next four years gives him a mighty good reason to keep his word.
Knicks president Isiah Thomas, meanwhile, says he is committed to acquiring players suited to Brown's style and temperament.
"I don't know why you play a team sport (if you are not) concerned with making your teammates better and helping your team win games," Brown said last week in the midst of one the most vitriolic exchanges between player and coach in NBA history. "That's the only thing that matters."
* * *
Coney Island is a bleak place during the cold months, when the icy wind blasts in from the Atlantic, slamming against the shuttered food stands along the famed boardwalk and rattling the deserted roller coasters and carousels. Trash blows up and down side streets; the junk yards, cheap furniture stores, housing projects and industrial buildings look especially bleak during the gray days of winter.
But in January 2004, as the F train pulled into its final stop at Avenue X, a group of high school boys wearing Knicks jerseys and hats celebrated, cheering and laughing like they had just won the lottery.
"Starbury is back in New York!" one of the kids chanted. "We're going to the NBA Finals!"
Not all Knicks fans were so optimistic, but even cynical supporters saw a reason to believe in Marbury's return to the Big Apple.
Isiah Thomas, hired as the Knicks' president a month earlier, had announced he was ready to shake things up with younger, quicker players. He engineered the trade that brought Marbury to New York from Phoenix soon after he took the job. A few weeks later he canned head coach Don Chaney and hired Lenny Wilkens. Many people thought Wilkens, a Brooklyn native and a former point guard, had the patience, knowledge and experience to transform Marbury from perennial underachiever to truly great player.
Looking back, it's difficult to understand why expectations were so high. It's true that Marbury is a two-time All-Star who has posted big numbers everywhere he's played. He and the legendary Oscar Robertson are the only two players in NBA history to average 20-plus points and eight assists per game for a career. He's also durable, having appeared in 280 consecutive games before suffering a shoulder injutry on Jan. 16.
But great players make those around them better - and Marbury's former teams - Minnesota, New Jersey, Phoenix - all improved after he departed. The Nets reached the NBA Finals the year after Marbury was traded for Jason Kidd. The Suns won 62 games last season with Steve Nash running the point and are close to securing the second seed in the Western Conference this season.
Meanwhile, Marbury-led teams have never gotten out of the first round of the playoffs. He has an uncanny knack for alienating teammates and frustrating coaches. The scowl on his face at times seems permanent.
"I think he's a good teammate," says Jamal Crawford. "Steph plays with a scowl. That's his disposition. But he wants to win and that's all that matters."
Of course, all NBA players want to win - an overwhelming drive to succeed is one difference between good athletes and those who are among the best in the world. But Marbury has never understood that he can't get by on talent alone, that there are concessions and sacrifices superstars have to make to lift their teams. That became apparent the moment Marbury stepped into the Knicks' locker room: Hours after greeting his new team and before playing his first game, Marbury was shocking his teammates by blasting music from his cubicle. It wasn't the crude rap lyrics that stunned the players; it was the idea that music - a definite no-no during the Pat Riley and Jeff Van Gundy years unless a player was wearing headphones - was filling the space.
It didn't help that Marbury already had one strike against him with many of his new teammates: They weren't happy about remarks he made about Charlie Ward years earlier.
Marbury had told reporters in 1998 that the Knicks would never win a championship with Ward as their point guard, and his prediction proved to be accurate. But Ward was a key contributor when the Knicks reached the '99 Finals, and he was a popular figure in the locker room, respected for his toughness and leadership. That fact that Ward was shipped to Phoenix as part of the deal that brought Marbury to the Garden only inflamed tensions.
Still, Marbury was the key player in Isiah Thomas' first major transaction at the Garden, and the Knicks' president wasted no time in handing the keys to the franchise to his new point guard. Whenever Marbury was unhappy, he went straight upstairs to complain to Thomas. It was an arrangement that created division in the locker room. Many of Marbury's teammates felt he hadn't earned the right to be treated like Tim Duncan, Shaquille O'Neal or Kobe Bryant.
Some of Marbury's teammates also were outraged by what they saw as the guard's double standard. At a team meeting last season, as rumors swirled that Wilkens was on the verge of being fired, the coach spoke to his team, telling them to concentrate on playing basketball and not worry about outside distractions.
When Wilkens was finished speaking, Marbury repeated most of the coach's message to the team, using profanity to puncuate his words and get his point across. When he was finished, the Knicks took the floor for practice with one exception: Marbury remained in the locker room for a massage.
* * *
After playing a year of college ball at Georgia Tech and his first two seasons of pro ball in Minnesota, Marbury finally got his wish - sort of - when the Timberwolves sent him to the New Jersey Nets in 1999. They weren't the Knicks and it wasn't the Garden, but Marbury, who had longed to play before his friends, family and hometown fans, was finally back home.
The year after his return, Marbury signed a deal with Wilhelmina Sports, a division of the international modeling agency, to represent him in negotiations for product endorsements and personal appearances. When the deal was finally completed at Wilhelmina's offices near Union Square, president Dieter Esch broke out a bottle of Champagne and poured glasses for Marbury and Marbury's then-business manager, his sister Marcia.
Esch toasted Marbury and said the kid from Coney had huge potential: "We see him involved with anything to do with fashion. Clothes, fragrances, casual wear, other kinds of opportunities beyond the traditional sneaker deal."
Models stopped in for a sip of bubbly and an opportunity to meet the rising star. Marbury was young, talented and rich, surrounded by beautiful women, but he seemed suspicious of his good fortune. He sat on a couch and nursed his drink, saying very little, a scowl on his face as Esch and his sister celebrated.
"He's not a happy person," says Rob Johnson, the Queens basketball consultant who has known Marbury since he was a kid. "Steph treats everyone with a cold shoulder. I know he takes care of a lot of people and he does a lot of good with his summer tournament. But he's very moody and he's hard to get along with."
Some of Marbury's longtime friends, however, say the same drive that lifted him out of Coney Island's mean streets will also help him turn around his NBA career.
"There's no doubt in my mind he wants to win," says Bobby Hartstein, Marbury's coach at Lincoln High School. "I'm sure Steph will make whatever adjustments he needs to make in order to win."
Still, Marbury always seems to go out of his way to isolate himself from his teammates. He forced the trade from Minnesota because he was jealous of his more talented and popular teammate, Kevin Garnett. In New Jersey, Marbury is remembered for writing "All Alone" on his sneakers. In New York, Kurt Thomas became so tired of what he calls Marbury's negative attitude that he threatened to fight him.
His ugly feud with Brown began prior to the 2004 Olympics - Brown coached the American team and Marbury was its point guard - and it reached its nadir last week. Their latest war of words began in November, when Brown praised Bucks point guard T.J. Ford following a loss to Milwaukee.
Then Brown said of the Knicks, "We don't have a head out there."
Last week, Marbury and Brown spent four days trading insults and driving what appears to be a permanent wedge into their relationship. Despite a few bright spots this season - primarily a six-game winning streak in January - their feud appears to be the final chapter in a season that is by any measure an unmitigated disaster.
"Anyone who witnessed what happened at the Olympics saw this coming," Jackson says. "There is no denying that Stephon Marbury is a great player and Larry Brown is a great coach. But as far as being the type of point guard that Larry wants, Stephon doesn't fit the mold."
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3/19/2006 9:59 AM