more shameless cablevision spin dressed up as a new york times article...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/10/sports/basketball/10knicks.html
A Buoyant Marbury Tries a Grin on for Size
By HOWARD BECK
Published: July 10, 2006
LAS VEGAS, July 8 — Stephon Marbury is happy. Very, very happy. Over-the-top, up-with-people, puppies-and-butterflies kind of happy.
The brooding, sour expression, worn so long it appeared permanently chiseled into Marbury's mug, is gone, replaced by sunny optimism and a full display of incisors, canines and molars.
"They couldn't surgically take the smile off my face," Marbury chirped late Saturday night.
This striking new look is not the result of a face-lift, but of a coaching transplant.
Larry Brown, Marbury's greatest tormentor, is gone. Isiah Thomas, Marbury's greatest advocate, is now presiding over the Knicks.
Little wonder, then, that the smile never drooped one centimeter for the 15 minutes that Marbury spoke with New York reporters attending a Knicks summer-league game at Cox Pavilion.
Marbury came to show his support for his young teammates and for Thomas. It would be reasonable to assume that he was beaming so brightly — gloating, even — over Brown's dismissal. But Marbury insisted that his glee had little to do with Brown and everything to do with Thomas.
"I'm talking about Isiah being the coach," said Marbury, who has been close to Thomas, who also is the team president, since Thomas acquired him from Phoenix in January 2004. "I wanted him to be the coach before all of this. I used to beg him, 'Why don't you coach? Why don't you coach?' Because I know that he knows how to coach. I've seen him coach."
Thomas had coached the Indiana Pacers for three years before assuming control of the Knicks. But Marbury said Thomas's response was always the same: "I can't help you down there."
That changed last month when James L. Dolan, the Madison Square Garden chairman, fired Brown and ordered Thomas to coach the team. Now Thomas is operating on a one-year ultimatum, with his employment at stake.
Now it is Marbury, Steve Francis and Eddy Curry who will determine how long Thomas remains with the Knicks.
"I've got one thing to say to that: We make love to pressure," Marbury said.
That curious bit of imagery was accompanied by several equally creative ways of avoiding any direct shots at Brown.
The two feuded so ferociously last season that a divorce seemed inevitable.
Indeed, during the final weeks of the Knicks' 23-59 season, Marbury sounded oddly upbeat, as if he were sure that Brown would be fired two months before it actually happened.
Yet in his first public comments since Brown's demise, Marbury refused to criticize him. There was no such restraint in March, when Brown and Marbury spent a week trading shots through the news media.
"I'm a man now; the times that I fired, I wasn't being a man," Marbury said. "I don't have any of those thoughts in my mind anymore. Those thoughts are gone. I wish him the best."
Brown's poor one-on-one communication with players — and his public swipes at them — caused an irreparable rift with most of them. He also used an N.B.A.-record 42 starting lineups. That was the only area Marbury directly addressed.
"It's kind of like when you put white clothes and yellow clothes and blue clothes and all of them different type clothes together when you're supposed to wash them separately," he said. "When the white clothes came out, you were like, 'Why did I do that? That was a mistake.' "
Marbury said Knicks players were not so much welcoming the coaching change as "welcoming wins."
"I think everything was under strain at the end of the year," he said. "This year, we'll have a different togetherness."
Thomas has said he will use a consistent 9- or 10-man rotation. Marbury also looks forward to starting alongside Francis in what he called "a devastating backcourt" — if the two guards can strike a balance in controlling the offense.
Although Thomas has played down their close relationship, Marbury called Thomas a "father figure" and said their bond would help communication on the court.
"With Isiah, being that I understand what he likes and what he wants and what he doesn't want you to do on a basketball court, it's a lot easier for me," Marbury said. He also said he trusted that Thomas, unlike Brown, would keep his critiques private. In declining to talk much about Brown, Marbury seemed to be doing the same.
"This is the last conversation about this," he said. "And after this, there's no more about last year, because last year is history."
For now, at least, so is Marbury's infamous sour expression.
"People ask me, 'Why don't you ever smile?' I say, 'Because I never was happy,' " Marbury said. "When you're losing, it's not fun. When you win, you all see me, right? I'm screaming, I've got the ball in my hand, they're showing me on the back page smiling."
7/10/2006 3:09 AM