Isiah
Thomas dispatched Jamal Crawford to find out how the players would react if and
when Marbury rejoined the team, all of them voted against allowing him to play.
Thomas, according to one person who spoke with Crawford, had pledged to hold
out Marbury if even a single Knick didn’t want him on the court.
So
how did Thomas react to the team’s unanimous vote?
He
sat Marbury until late in the first quarter then played him nearly 34 of the
game’s remaining 39 minutes.
On the other hand, most of the article smells of another ill-informed hack job that capitalizes on the bad image of the Knicks. Take this for example:
The
Knicks let out a collective sigh of relief when told Marbury had left. For one
night, at least, they didn’t have to stomach his selfishness. But as soon as
Marbury walked into the visitors’ locker room Wednesday, smiling as if he had
just crisscrossed 9,000 miles in 48 hours for the sheer pleasure of pumping up
his frequent-flier account, the team was once again on edge.
I do agree that his return probably put the team on edge. But this whole episode has had the team on edge, and dragging it out was not going to help the situation. What the Knicks needed is quick closure, and to move on. That's why playing Marbury made sense, even if you ignore the fact that he's the Knicks' best, and only, option at point guard.
Kenny Smith, who did the play by play for yesterday's game, talked repeatedly about how "the NBA is a grown man's league, and business league". He was talking obviously from the perspective of a former player, one who, in fact, had his share of crazy teammates. Or perhaps "mad" is a better word, as in Mad Max, the nickname for Vernon Maxwell.
His take is that teammates don't really get too caught up in that "he abandoned us" nonsense that writers like Ludden utilize. Maybe if it was before a big game (like the Oakland Raider who left his team the night before the Super Bowl due to mental problems, and never found forgiveness in the NFL), but players aren't going to get too worked up about other players battling management. It's sort of like a contract holdout in the NFL; if anything, players are usually sympathetic to holdouts in that situation.
The Knicks aren't quite as sympathetic to Marbury in this situation, nor should they. I'm betting that it's not the abandonment issue that bothers them as much as the "damn, they are all laughing at us again" issue, which Ludden hints at in his piece. It's obvious from some of the quotes that players (like Malik Rose, who supposedly said "I'm sick of babysitting this team") are tired of the nonsense that surrounds the team.
But the players are professional, and they know that they need to go out there and win games. Winning games makes all the distractions, the problems, go away. And to win games they are going to need Stephon Marbury right now.
I said it early this offseason, but... Brevin Knight. He was available for cheap, and no one took him. So many teams - the Cavs and Celts jump to mind - could have used a point guard like him. Given that all he does is pass the ball, not turn it over, and play tough defense... maybe the Knicks could have used him, too....
Leave a comment
|
6 Comments
Comments
I say let Marbury play and Isiah coach as long as possible. At least there will be one team below the Sixers in the Atlantic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/nyregion/15mrlou.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
I'm sure you read it by now, but marbury went to NY to mourn the death of Lou Williams, one of the most important people in NY Basketball.
Why isiah didn't let him go, or why he didn't tell isiah, thats what got me confused...
Prez: I saw that article. It illustrates again that we are dealing with real people, you know?
But when I read that article this morning, I thought the timing was a little off. It says that he passed away at 3:00 PM on Tuesday; I'm guessing that Marbury's feud with Isiah, and the whole plane ride, was done before that. I remember the stories of Steph being AWOL popping up early in the afternoon. I could be wrong, but I think it's more of a coincidence than the actual cause of why Marbury wanted to leave the team.
But if it is why he left the team, then it's really no different than Zach Randolph being in Indiana for his grandmother's funeral.
I read that Marbury didn't even know that the guy died until he went home and someone told him....
Yeah, I'm wondering about the Lou Williams timeline myself. You might be right SML. But if it was like Zach, marbury would have a resonsibility to tell Isiah. In any case, they will work things out. Remeber the horrible press after the Knicks fight with Denver last year. Maybe this episode could have a similar effect starting tomorrow in Sacramento. Or maybe I'm just dreaming.
As for Ludden, i have no idea what to make of this story... or the 15 other accounts of the famous plane trip either
Isiah and Marbury have to go. This team, and the organization, needs to get back to just playing basketball. I think that's what he meant by saying the team was 'on edge'. You have the majority of the guys there excited about the prospects of the season with the addition of a new player (Randolph) and a 0-0 record and then you have Marbury who seems to have his own agenda.
They need to scrap those two and get two other 'quieter' guys in there (B. Knight would be real nice and so would Rick Carlisle, possibly*) who would get this team back to playing basketball.
*depending on if he could let this team run a bit more than he's let his teams run in the past.