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djsunyc
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Joined: 1/16/2004
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http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=alipour/070125
you can see a video excerpt with him and kobe.
By Sam Alipour
Special to Page 2
NEW YORK -- Stephon Marbury wants to destroy me.
I knew this just moments into our first encounter, shortly after a contest between his Knicks and the Rockets -- a game in which he'd been benched 65 seconds into the second half by his erstwhile supporter turned tough-loving coach, Isiah Thomas.
The reason for his benching? Two quick Marbury turnovers in a game the Knicks would go on to lose.
By my estimation, being on the embarrassing end of a preposterously quick hook is cause for any mortal -- and certainly any two-time All-Star who has heard the boos from home fans -- to go Chuck Norris on Thomas and the media during his postgame interview.
But that's not when I caught wind of Marbury's ill intentions. Because that's not how it went down.
Though I'd heard Marbury could be a prickly interviewee in dark hours, he stood before the media throng at his locker and gracefully tossed sporting sound bites like, "The message is loud and clear … ," and "I won't be playing like that anymore … ," but not "I will now kick your neck."
What gives? Maybe it's Marbury's recent foray to the other side of the table. When the X-and-O riffraff had cleared, Marbury told me he'd reached a deal with a cable network for his half-hour sports and lifestyle interview show, "Stars on Stars."
That's when I became certain of my demise.
Fox Sports Net VP Lou D'Ermilio confirms that the network will carry the show -- 13 episodes in all, likely to begin airing in March in a Friday afternoon timeslot -- on most of its 25 affiliates, effectively beaming the ramblings of Marbury and friends into nearly 82 million homes.
"The appeal here is watching Stephon, a current star athlete, interviewing his contemporaries," D'Ermilio explained. "It's a rather unique concept."
Marbury, who will serve as executive producer and host, already has shot what he calls "two-way interviews" with Kobe Bryant, Chauncey Billups, and Steve Francis, and has secured commitments from Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and former New York Gov. George Pataki for future installments.
Now, these are good "gets" for any reporter, but when an athlete is doing the asking, can the audience expect the goods? Did Marbury pull punches in asking Francis for his feelings on Isiah and the disjointed Knicks backcourt? In the future, will he hesitate to inquire about Stephen Jackson's fascination with pole dancers and bullets or Cuban's fascination with being kind of a dork?
"Why would I?" Marbury replies. "I'm not going to ask someone something that's real dear to their hearts, but I'll ask them what people want to know. They're also interviewing me, so I'll have to be ready for tough questions too.
"By conversing and doing it that way, by keeping it open, people can see something different. It's not just a sports talk show. It's also about their lives, so it's interesting. It's something people can relate to."
When the show debuts, Marbury presumably will join Tiki Barber in a burgeoning cabal of high-profile, highly successful athletes with designs on a career crossover towards journalism. This has many sports reporters either A) quaking in their Keds or B) seething with jealousy.
Most ex-athletes in the media are confined to studios. They are either disinterested or incapable of rendering jock-sniffing sports reporters obsolete. Barber (once he officially signs with NBC, Fox, or ESPN/ABC) and Marbury, with their star power and ability to pull strings in garnering big "gets," are both interested and, according to D'Ermilio, highly capable.
"They're both intelligent, thoughtful athletes," D'Ermilio says. "And they've both demonstrated a certain degree of likability, whether as a member of the media or an interviewee."
Marbury, for his part, knows he's encroaching on my territory and knows he is -- at least, in part -- cheating.
"Yeah, I do think I have it easier," he admits, caught red-handed. "I think players will open up more to me as opposed to somebody like you."
Watch it, Starbury. Unlike you, I'm schooled in the ways of Chuck Norris.
"What exactly are you trying to say?" I inquire, with both menace and nervous laughter.
"Naw, I'm not trying to say nothing," he chuckles, wisely backtracking. "I'm just saying we have a lot in common, so they can open up."
To ascertain exactly just how screwed traditional sports reporters are, sometime later I take the Port Authority bus to American Airlines Arena where the Lakers are finishing off the New Jersey Nets. Maybe Kobe, Marbury's recent subject, can explain just how grave my plight is.
"You're awfully picky when granting interviews," I point out to Bryant, barely veiling my rage.
"Yeah, I am picky," Bryant confirms.
Righto. But you gave one to a rookie in Marbury. What gives?
"Well, I've known Stephon for years."
Stephon Marbury
Nathaniel Butler/Getty Images
Starbury says he won't be afraid to ask tough questions of his peers on his upcoming interview show, "Stars on Stars."
Yup, Marbury -- sports journalism's answer to Barry Bonds -- has got the juice. The race will not be televised, but suffice it to say, he's a greyhound on HGH, and I'm a blind rat with two clubbed feet. Marbury must be derailed.
"But he's a rook'," I stammer. "How good can he be?"
"I was actually surprised with how good Stephon is at this," Bryant continues. "What he's got going for him is he understands what it's like to be a professional athlete -- the toll on your body and the pressures that go along with it. So he knows what to ask and how to push.
"It's not even like an interview," he continues, unsolicited. "It's like a really good, recorded conversation."
Now, colleagues and compatriots, breathe. Turns out, "Stars on Stars" isn't intended to be a cunning step in Marbury's master plan to canvass TV screens with his mug, or like Barber, to step into Matt Lauer's shoes. Marbury has his own. The $14.97 "Starbury One" was launched, in part, to present inner-city kids with an alternative to the high-priced kicks bearing the name of other high-rent athletes. In December, he even donated a pair to every high school varsity basketballer in NYC.
Beyond the shoes, Marbury says he has sizeable investments in real estate and a customized car shop in Jersey. Turns out, his TV show is just another humble endeavor in the young man's scattershot approach to securing his future, identifying his interests, and being Marbury, not Tiki.
"I'm happy for Tiki, but I'm not doing this to be like him or to build a career in news or show business," he explains. "It's one of many things that I'm doing, and I'm not done. I want to do everything.
"I be who I am."
And who is Marbury? Media members have been asking themselves just that since the dude came into the NBA. Marbury acknowledges this and hopes that his show will help shed some light on the mystery.
"I really don't have no armor on, and I don't have to show people a different side to save face," he says. "But I felt this would allow me to express myself, so people see who I am beyond basketball. A lot of what's written about me isn't true at all, as far as me being selfish."
Marbury says he'd like to extend the same opportunity to his fellow ballers.
"I learned a lot about the guys that I interviewed, stuff I didn't know about my own friends, and probably you didn't know," he says. "I didn't know that Chauncey picked Colorado (to play college ball) because his grandparents got sick and he wanted to be closer to home. To me, that's cool. That's a side of Chauncey that's not written about."
Marbury's right. If Marbury is to the streets as Barber is to Wall Street as this reporter is to Hollywood Boulevard, then yeah, there's room for us all in the wild frontier of media.
"You know what it comes down to?" Marbury says. "When I'm done playing, I don't ever want to be sitting behind a desk."
I know the feeling pal, is what I should've told him. Even as I type this, I'm standing.
Then, Isiah called Marbury into a closed-door meeting.
Go do your thing … and take a camera with you.
Sam Alipour is based in Los Angeles. His Media Blitz column appears in ESPN The Magazine and regularly on Page 2. You can reach him at Sam.Alipour@gmail.com.
[Edited by - djsunyc on 01-25-2007 3:19 PM]
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1/25/2007 3:58 PM
