Some excerpts from the article I alluded to in another thread about Marbury, don't see Melo acting like this...
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2008-11-29/sports/17911020_1_stephon-marbury-knicks-allan-houston
Feb 04 2010, New York — Stephon Marbury is going away kicking and screaming, an exit befitting a spoiled millionaire whose introduction to the Knicks was also loud and thoroughly obnoxious.
In the years before the franchise was hijacked by the point guard from Coney Island, the Knicks had an unwritten policy that if you wanted to listen to music before a game you had to do so wearing headphones. Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley, Larry Johnson and Latrell Sprewell, all winners in New York, obeyed the rule.
But when Marbury walked into the visitors' locker room in Cleveland before his first game with the Knicks, he turned up the volume of his sound system and immediately turned off his co-workers. In a matter of minutes, Marbury had set a world record for alienating teammates.
In the grand scheme of things, it was a minor infraction, especially when compared to Marbury's subsequent misdeeds as a Knick. But it was an example of how naive and selfish he was and remains. It mattered not to Marbury that he was replacing two popular players, Charlie Ward and Antonio McDyess, or that Ward also was best friends with the Knicks' most respected and longest-tenured player, Allan Houston. Nor had any of the Knicks forgotten that in 1999 Marbury had mocked Ward, saying that he could never lead them to a championship.
If ever a player needed to understand locker-room protocol, this was the time. But Marbury never learned. Isiah Thomas gave him the keys to the organization and the rest of the team be damned. Soon enough, Marbury would drive the franchise off a cliff.
The irony now is that after all these years of mistreating coaches, staff members and teammates, Marbury is feeling victimized.
Marbury now says the "marriage" is over, which is an interesting analogy from a guy who had an extra-marital affair with an intern and then laughed about it after testifying in Thomas' sexual harassment trial. But this is the world according to Steph. The only people he'll deal with are those in the organization and media who live to serve him. There is no middle ground. The rest are treated like dirt.
That's why Kurt Thomas and Quentin Richardson wanted to fight him. That's why one of the NBA's true ambassadors, Dikembe Mutombo, despised him. And that's why you can't feel badly for Marbury.
He deserved better from the Knicks over the past six weeks. And they deserved better from him the last six seasons.
2/26/2011 11:36 PM