i don't know if any of us can fairly expect or even hope for Marbury to grow up & become a leader of this team because of this sad event that just occurred in his life... he is what he is as a player & i doubt that's gonna change... i feel horrible for him as a human being for having lost his father this way, but i gotta be honest, it doesn't change my disdain for this guy while he's wearing that Knicks uniform... i don't see anyone making jokes about the loss of his father here, not sure where you're going w/that one... none of us know Marbury or knew his dad... i'm pretty sure not many of the posters here even knew Stephon's dad's name before he died, so let's not all get carried away w/the expressed sorrow here... i'm pretty sure the NY media will give Marbs a break on the bashing for a little while while he mourns the loss of his dad, but i don't think anything's really changed in terms of people opinions about the guy.

RIP. I send my condolences to Stephon and his family.

sorry, i wasn't really in touch w/how everything went down, just got the news on the boards actually... was there some mishandling of the information about his dad's death? what's all this about Marbury refusing to play ever again for the Knicks that holfresh posted about in the other thread?

wow, he loses his aunt and now his dad. That's very difficult. He needs all the time in the world.

A tough time for marury

Q Rich had to deal w/some tragic stuff like this too, as did Tim Thomas... as tragic as this is, this type of stuff is human reality... i'm sure we've all lost very close loved ones unexpectedly at some point or another... this stuff about the Knicks not telling Marbury about it sounds more to me like a case of misinformation that was being transferred back & forth & someone deciding it was better to wait til the facts were known before saying anything to Marbs about it... obviously the wrong idea, but i don't think they did this w/any malicious intent.

whether stupidity or sheer ignorance is the cause, i'm not arguing against... but to think they didn't inform Steph because they were more concerned about trying to win the game is a moronic notion.

this is a sad thing when otherwise logical & intelligent fans of this team have been reduced to buying into such conspiracy theories to reason away this type of incompetence... y'all need to stop reading playa's 9/11 threads!

Posted by TMS:

this is a sad thing when otherwise logical & intelligent fans of this team have been reduced to buying into such conspiracy theories to reason away this type of incompetence... y'all need to stop reading playa's 9/11 threads!

TMS oneday , i might have an apology thread on 9/11 conspiracy knowing what's going on in our country today.

I'm trying to find a link....someone posted just this article on another forum.

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Reporter's instinct gone awry

Usually a reporter's instinct is close to dead-on, particularly when you've been in the business for decades.

So, from the look and body language of Isiah Thomas after Sunday's loss to Phoenix, Stephon Marbury's behavior and the ghost town that was the Knicks' post-game locker room, practically every reporter at the Garden figured something was up between Thomas and Marbury.

And it wasn't good _ and most of us wrote it that way, some even pushing our laptop buttons to send it to be printed.

Then word got out that Marbury lost his father Don during the game, but wasn't told about it until afterward because the Knicks didn't want the word getting to other family members second-hand, particularly on the 11 o'clock news.

Sometimes, then, those instincts are glaringly wrong and thankfully, stories that were critical of Marbury's play (which Thomas didn't contradict by the in-game benchings of his point guard and his post-game remarks) didn't reach print.

So what's clearly been a tough season, even before that, for a lot of reasons (some of his own doing) _ Marbury's role in the Anucha Browne Sanders case, his flight home from Phoenix after his dispute with Thomas, the loss of an aunt (cousing Sebastian Telfair's grandmother) plus his coach and mentor, Robert Williams _ got even tougher.

How this plays out, of course, is anyone's guess, but don't expect to see Marbury until Friday's game in Philadelphia at the earliest, if then. After his aunt (his mother's sister) died last month, he said she was having a hard time.

It didn't get any easier Sunday after a game the Knicks could have won with a little more patience and the ability not to get caught up in the Suns' tempo.

Thomas seemed to blame that on Marbury when he answered a question about impatience by saying, "I'll keep that thgouht to myself."

At the time, the context seemed critical. In retrospect, the comment was critical, but cryptic, out of respect.

Thankfully, virtually all the stories you'll read Monday at least take the same tone.