BBALLER4FR wrote:
-= original quote snipped =-



What was IT? You have yet to explain it. Did the team not like Steph proclaiming he was the best and quit on him because of it? Did Steph throw it out there and proceed intentionally prove himself wrong....for the remainder of his career? It's just seems like one of those "Unsolved Mysteries" people are expected to buy into.

"Don't get me wrong -- I love Jason Kidd. He's a great point guard," Marbury said. "(But) how am I comparing myself to him when I think I'm the best point guard to play basketball? That doesn't make any sense. I mean, how can I sit here and compare myself to somebody if I already think I'm the best?

"I'm telling you what it is: I know I'm the best point guard in the NBA. I don't need anybody else to tell me that. When I go on the basketball court, if I think about what you're all saying, I'll lose my mind."

"He's just like me," Marbury said of Kidd at yesterday's morning shootaround before the Nets beat the Knicks, 93-87. "He's a loser. We're both losers. Neither of us have won a championship. Tim Duncan is a winner. Kevin Garnett is a loser just like me. Charles Barkley is a loser just like me. [TNT partner] Kenny Smith is a winner.

"Magic [Johnson], Michael Jordan, [Larry] Bird, those guys are winners. Kobe [Bryant] and Shaquille [O'Neal] are winners. Isiah Thomas is a winner. Until you win championships, we're just like everyone else. It doesn't matter how far you get in the playoffs. It doesn't matter if you get to the Finals. You lost."

Marbury didn't back down from his New Year's boast that he considers himself the "best point guard in basketball."

"I'm just saying reality and answered a question," Marbury said. "I already know I'm the best point guard. It's like asking if it's raining outside. You're going to tell them it's raining."

WFAN interview:

Carlin: A couple of weeks ago Stephon Marbury makes the comment that he feels like he's the best point guard in the league. When the Nets hear something like that, and you have Jason Kidd on the team, are their any raised eyebrows going around?

Scalabrine: OK here's the difference. When Steph makes that comment, I dont know, I mean I'm not in the locker room, but I don't know if the Knicks have his back. But when Steph makes that comment about Jason, we were like "we are not losing this game against the Knicks, we can't let this happen." We have Jason's back and Jason has our back. And I think you know Steph is a very good player, you know he's very talented. But you know I'd run through a wall for Jason and Jason would run through a wall for us. That pretty much shows that he's the best point guard. When you have a guy like that and you'll do anything for him and he'll do anything for you that pretty much sums up the best point guard ever.

Sweetney Shows N.Y. How to Play Nice With Others

By Greg Sandoval
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 7, 2005; Page D01

Against a chaotic backdrop of locker-room squabbles, coaching changes and roster shuffles, New York Knicks forward Michael Sweetney can boast three triumphs.

First, Sweetney is one of three holdovers, along with Kurt Thomas and Allan Houston, from the Knicks' opening day roster last season. Secondly, the former Georgetown standout and all-American at Oxon Hill High in Prince George's County says proudly, "I have not gotten into one fight or argument with anyone on the team."

A peaceful coexistence with teammates and two years of longevity are what pass for accomplishments these days for the Knicks (25-34), who host the Wizards tomorrow night. The turmoil within the New York franchise has begun to create rifts. One yearlong feud boiled over in January when Marbury and Thomas nearly came to blows following a game against Cleveland, according to the New York Daily News.

But trading Thomas simply to placate Marbury and not getting equal value in return could prove disastrous. The Knicks still are licking their wounds from including Dikembe Mutombo in the Jamal Crawford deal last summer and then giving Shandon Anderson a $19 million buyout one week into the season. Both players could have given the Knicks two things they clearly lack: defense and leadership. Those transactions seemed to have more to do with personality conflicts than basketball as Isiah Thomas, the Knicks president, had a famous falling out with both players. And in a recently published book about Sebastian Telfair called "The Jump", the father of the rookie point guard recounts a conversation he had with Marbury in which Marbury takes credit for getting Keith Van Horn traded. Kurt Thomas is one of just 11 players in the league averaging a double-double. He can play two positions and is the team's best low-post defender. "You don't win without guys like that," Herb Williams said

And on this night, [kurt] Thomas cracked up Stoudemire by telling the Suns forward something he'd been pondering for weeks: "I can't stand playing with Stephon Marbury."

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.

February 9, 2005


Marbury led a fourth-quarter comeback and scored 36 points for the Knicks, who lost for the 17th time in their past 20 games.

Isiah Thomas even tried to put a positive spin on the Knicks' chemistry issues, including a recent heated argument on the bench between Marbury and Kurt Thomas...

"Those are positive things, because our guys are getting sick and tired of losing, and frustration is setting in," Isiah Thomas said. "At some point in time, those 12 men in the locker room have to bond."

Okay, one more:

No one can argue that brown took a conventional approach here. But at the same time no one can argue this was a conventional roster. On this team talent and effort didn't necessarily follow salary, and leadership didn't follow talent.

The conventional approach would have been to dole out leadership roles based on things like salary, seniority, skills, etc, but that would have failed here - and did.

While we had a historically high number of lineups, Marbury, Curry and Q where pretty much inked in at the 1, 2 and 5 - when healthy. I'd assert none of them, with their defined roles, fared any better than their uncertain counterparts. In fact one could argue that their opposits, like Nate, JC and Butler emerged as the more significant leaders and/or contributors.

Brown tried to work with a structure whereby key guys were given key roles and they were expected to be our leaders but they largely failed on virtually every significant level, with the exception of Q, who at least showed an emotional fortitude. But there was enough flexibility in his approach that the guys who weren't assigned key roles could still emerge, and the phony "stars" or "leaders" would reveal their worth for what it isn't.

This was a dysfunctional roster (and franchise) Brown inherited and he's resorted to some unconventional means to sort the wheat from the chaff. Hopefully we'll be better for it next year and thereafter. In contrast, in Wilkens we had a guy who tried to just "adapt to his players" and stroke and fluff them for quick wins, but when the bottom fell out with a 2-15 January '05 (worst month ever in knicks history) we were left with nothing to stand on for his efforts.

In fact this entire season has NOT been about falling into a hole Brown dug, it's about trying to climb our way out of the aftermath of prior indulgence and entitlements to the undeserved, which some refer to as "defined roles".

Posted by djsunyc:

blue - more quality posts. i may bring the quantity but you definitely bring the quality.

message is the same tho: the reason why the season went down the drain was b/c of steph's and lb's relationship. nothing else. not the rotations. not the lineups. not anything else except steph and lb's relationship. and steph's behavior this season was no different than his behavior last season or previous seasons. only difference is that this coach wasn't going to get fired b/c of it. steph said that lb flexed his juice card. but the funny thing is that steph's juice card had more power...b/c the season went to hell b/c steph was never fully on board and lb had no idea what to do about it. and isiah was sitting in the corner with his thumb up his ass b/c of his conflict of interest.

Posted by djsunyc:

blue - more quality posts. i may bring the quantity but you definitely bring the quality.

message is the same tho: the reason why the season went down the drain was b/c of steph's and lb's relationship. nothing else. not the rotations. not the lineups. not anything else except steph and lb's relationship. and steph's behavior this season was no different than his behavior last season or previous seasons. only difference is that this coach wasn't going to get fired b/c of it. steph said that lb flexed his juice card. but the funny thing is that steph's juice card had more power...b/c the season went to hell b/c steph was never fully on board and lb had no idea what to do about it. and isiah was sitting in the corner with his thumb up his ass b/c of his conflict of interest.