July 14th, 2008 – Dr. Dime

Today I’ve been thinking about Stephon Marbury. Don’t ask me why, I have a pretty sick mind I guess. I’m far from an old timer as I can still ball with the best of them at the local Y, but I’m also long enough in the tooth to remember when Stephon Marbury was a force in the NBA. He was a real headliner, a player that people loved to pay money to come and see. He had slick handles, an amazing crossover and could kill the opposition with his pull up jumper or powerful drives to the rack.

From 1998-2008 he had 7 seasons where he averaged over 20 points and 7.5 assists per game. The guy was a stone cold killer out there on the hard wood. No one could deny that Marbury was one of the most skilled point guards in the NBA. The problem with Marbury’s career legacy is that his name has been synonymous with losing. This is the reason that 3 (soon to be 4) teams have been willing to move one of the better scoring guards in the league. IMO Marbury was always been a 2 or 3 guard forced into playing an unnatural position for someone with a scoring mentality, the killer instinct. Everyone always has criticized Marbury for being too selfish and not moving the ball enough for a point guard. Yet with a 6’3” and 210lb chiseled frame, shouldn’t some of his coaching detractors have given Marbury a legitimate go at the shooting guard position? We may never know at this point.

There has been a lot of press lately on the possibility of a Marbury buy-out by the Knicks. He is quite simply not on the short list of point guards that Mike D’Antoni or Donnie Walsh would want running their up-tempo system. So what will Marbury do, where will he go? There has been some rumors that Marbury may be interested in playing for the Celtics next year to reunite with Garnett, however Paul Pierce has made it clear in the last week after his comments and his opinion of Marbury that he didn’t mean he wanted him on the Celtics, so I doubt we’ll see that happen. Other teams still looking for a point guard are the Miami Heat, Denver Nuggets, and Phoenix Suns. The Suns are seeking more of a back-up role which I have a hard time believing a guy with an ego as big as Marbury’s would be willing to accept. The Heat seem dedicated to giving the reins to Mario Chalmers when he’s ready, but I doubt Marbury is the type of character they want influencing their young draftee. And finally there is no way in hell the Denver Nuggets would pair Marbury with Allen Iverson, and Carmelo Anthony. If they did they would be the all-selfish team. Their offense would look more like a game of “british bulldog” than it would an attempt to score.

So what is Marbury to do? Should he retire? Although a player with his skill set will always be able to find a home in the league on some bottom feeding club that is looking to put a few extra butts in seats, Marbury has a much greater chance of blowing whatever is left of his reputation and legacy than he does to regain his all-star caliber form that saw him breaking ankles on Sports Center on a regular basis. I think even Marbury may have come to this same conclusion lately, as the word is Marbury has made every possible effort in the past two weeks to get in D’Antoni’s good books and get one last chance at redemption from a guy who’s basketball philosophy seems to parallel what Marbury’s game has always been about.

I’m talking about “Shoot first, ask questions later.”