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October 7, 2008
Sports of The Times
As Knicks Move on, Marbury Is Clinging to the Past
By HARVEY ARATON
Greenburgh, N.Y.
The first true sign of a transitioning Knicks culture was apparent upon walking through the gymnasium door, into an open practice, where Stephon Marbury’s jersey was as blue as one of his midseason moods. Scrimmaging with the projected subs as the shooting guard, he was no longer in charge of the offense, much less the organization.
On record that he expects to be a point guard and a starter, he placed his hands on the shoulders of a person who inquired about his anticipated role with the Knicks this season.
“You go ask D’Antoni that,” Marbury said, already calling another coach by his last name, quasi formality his standard behavioral strategy in the absence of obedience.
Unbeknownst to Marbury, Mike D’Antoni had already addressed the question of Marbury, the player most identified with the disastrous Isiah Thomas era, indirectly but most revealingly.
“You try to just talk it through and see where we’re going with it,” D’Antoni said. “There’s a lot of the unknown factor out there and everybody’s waiting for the known factor. But, you know, that will work itself out.”
He didn’t quite pause for effect before adding, “Or not.”
In the case of Marbury and the Knicks, there is something of a track record of disharmonic relationships to use as a guide in the forecast. If that isn’t enough, there is D’Antoni’s apparent anointing of the newcomer Chris Duhon as the starting point guard, or at least making the position Duhon’s to lose, which Marbury seems to think is only a matter of preseason minutes.
“My expectations are no different than last year,” he said. “I expect to come in and dominate.”
Marbury is either very good at sticking to a script while he tries to induce a full buyout of the final year of his contract, or he is in for a hard lesson in the politics of new-regime upheaval.
Whether Marbury realizes it or not, D’Antoni is not the candidate of change. He has already been elected. He knows, as Senator Joe Biden would say, that past is prologue. And that Marbury’s continued presence here merely delays his inevitable departure, even if he is the roster’s most talented player and may be in the best shape of his professional career.
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The Knicks just need to move on, the sooner the better. Their desire to find strong, positive leadership to help exorcize the demons of the past four years makes perfect sense for anyone who has paid attention to not only the Knicks but also to the football Giants and, come to think of it, the Mets.
On the day Plaxico Burress returned to the undefeated Giants after his two-week, one-game suspension, what better example was there of a team that had prospered with an adherence to the axiom of addition by subtraction? By shedding those who tend to create in-house distraction by putting themselves first?
This, by the way, is not meant to compare Marbury to Burress, in terms of performance or value. Without Burress, who caught the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl, the Giants would not have gotten out of Green Bay last winter.
Headlines howled “Who Needs Plax” after Sunday’s demolition of Seattle featured wide-out contributions from everyone but Kyle Rote and Homer Jones, but the critics may want to go easy on that particular theme, with a brutal divisional portion of the schedule coming.
The point is, the Giants sent a message to Burress for going AWOL from practice without a note from Tom Coughlin: there will be no usurpation of the collective ideals they established on the road to Arizona last season. It is on Burress now to show up, at least be in touch when he cannot, or he won’t reach the next leg of the upgraded contract he recently received.
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If pro basketball agreements could be declared null and void as easily as those in the N.F.L., Marbury would already be gone, along with Zach Randolph and possibly Eddy Curry.
When D’Antoni speaks glowingly of a lightweight like Jared Jeffries, as he did before Jeffries broke his leg last week, it tells you how much he wants to disinherit others he already believes can never be part of the solution.
The team culture is crucial, we keep hearing from people who understandably want the Mets to shake up their core after successive September collapses.
If it is for the Mets, who won 97 games in 2006 and have at least been a playoff contender since, how can Marbury remain as the ringleader of a team that has won 23 games in two of the last three seasons and has been socially dysfunctional to boot?
A wise adviser to Marbury would tell him that a negotiated buyout would be in his best interests, too. Does he really need more confrontation on the New York stage as he tries to re-steer or salvage his career? By moving on, starting fresh, finding a role on a successful team, he might actually earn any millions he would sacrifice on the back end.
Or not.
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