Yeah I agree with you Swish. Does 'detrimental' mean playing hurt, a willingness to come back and play through pain in an otherwise lost season where just about any other guy would've packed it in and just collected his check? Or does it entail enduring the unnecessary wrath of your coach going to the media every single day with nonsense that should 100% be handled in house? OK, then Steph's 'detrimental'. I'm not the biggest fan of Marbury's sulking and bad body language and some of his comments are a bit off-the-wall, but I like him a lot as a player. He's a good player in his prime that we can win with. No doubt in my mind. He's not the problem. LB has done a dreadful job building relationships with his players, especially with Steph, just like he's done a piss-poor job with just about everything else.
I mean look at how he handled Trevor Ariza. I wasn't really as big of an Ariza fan as some of you guys but when there was a problem and the kid wanted to play instead of going to the press and calling the kid 'delusional' he should've sat the kid down in his office after practice and layed the law down. Then Ariza wanted to talk to the guy and LB GOES AND TELLS THE PRESS that he doesn't need to talk to the kid???? Granted Ariza never should've popped off himself (settle down there Bevis, you're still basically a rookie) but WTF is that about? One of your kids wants to talk to you - TALK TO HIM!!! I hated how Larry handled that. Rediculous.
Now the latest is Larry going to the press and feeling compelled to remind everyone about his prior success with guys like Haywood Wookman and Eric Snow as his PGs. Please. Enough with the Eric Snow stuff already, okay dude. Look, he's been around a long time and he's had a little bit of success and I agree with him about getting back to the basics as far as sharing the ball, rebounding, etc. but get over yourself. The guy's not nearly the miracle worker he thinks he is. He's won 1 championship with a team that could've won with me as the head coach. The Pistons will probably win it all again this year with Flip. That team's a machine, probably a dynasty if they keep that core together. All Larry had to do was show up and fill out the line-up card for Christ's sake. Bottom line for me is this mess with the Knicks this season falls solely on Brown, not on Steph. I love how this guy goes out of his way to make his best player out to be the goat for the team's demise when it's his fault! Real nice there Larry.
3/15/2006 9:38 PM