WellBall<\/a>, what he calls the \u201cpickleball of basketball.\u201d That time was interrupted on Monday.<\/p>\nBecause, of course, he saw the tweet.<\/p>\n
Words Marbury never associated with his Knicks career reached nearly 1 million viewers when a NY Post reporter denigrated the ex-point guard\u2019s time with the franchise. The post included a video from the Knicks\u2019 own social media account of Marbury supporting the team courtside during Game 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe celebration of Stephon Marbury is such a strange thing,\u201d the NY Post reporter wrote. \u201cHe was a terrible Knick. Dragged down the franchise for five years. Won zero playoff games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those words are buried inside the archives of Marbury\u2019s iMessage app, incoming and outgoing messages alike, disturbing the freedom he\u2019s worked hard to create.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get it. I understand. Things happen. Things didn\u2019t go well,\u201d he says. \u201cBut the purity of New York basketball is in my DNA.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the wrong one. I\u2019m the kid from Coney Island, for real.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marbury amassed a 113-174 record during his four-plus seasons in New York. His Knicks went to the playoffs once and were swept by the New Jersey Nets, who lost in the second round to the eventual NBA champion Detroit Pistons.<\/p>\n
Marbury was in his late 20s then. Twenty years have passed since his final season in New York. Today, he wants to see the Knicks \u2014 yes, the \u201cNova Knicks\u201d \u2014 reach heights he couldn\u2019t during his time in orange and blue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a Knicks fan before I was ever a Knick. My mom was a Knicks fan. I was a Knicks fan in the womb. I\u2019m almost close to half of a century living on this Earth being a Knicks fan,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is why people in your industry are being replaced by former players. What [the NY Post reporter] said doesn\u2019t matter. It gets voided when real people who\u2019ve been on the hardwood speak.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marbury admits his years in New York weren\u2019t the best. But when he first joined the Knicks, he got on a plane with then president of basketball operations Isiah Thomas. Thomas, who took the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons to back-to-back NBA titles, gave him a blueprint on leading a team through tumultuous times as a floor general.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018Teams bring you in when there\u2019s a sh-t storm. You are able to weather the storm when things are going bad, and you\u2019ll come in and just play and do what you do,\u2019\u201d Marbury recalled. \u201cI\u2019ll put on my sneakers. I\u2019m gonna lace them up. I\u2019m gonna play. A lot of people have their opinion about how I played, and I can submit in the moment that I wasn\u2019t perfect in all of what I\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I tried. I was trying, and I came ready, and I came prepared. People that are unprepared, I think those are the people who [critics] will be able to look at and contest. Some of the people that are in my draft class, I lap them. And I\u2019m talking about years played. Not even talent or stats.\u201d<\/p>\n
NOTHING WITH CAP<\/p>\n
Marbury and Brunson don\u2019t have a relationship, but the former Knick sees a little bit of himself in New York\u2019s current captain.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis ground attack is crazy, but right now he makes a lot of moves, and when you make a lot of moves, it takes a lot of energy,\u201d Marbury says. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of movement to breathe through all that. He\u2019s conditioned to do it, so he makes it look easy. But it\u2019s super hard to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marbury believes Brunson has what it takes to make good on James Dolan\u2019s January mandate: that he can lift the Knicks to their first NBA title since 1973.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re behind [Jalen]. We support him, but we also want him to make adjustments,\u201d he says. \u201cJalen is the guy that we want and we love because he\u2019s a great human being. Now, he\u2019s in the process of making his adjustments towards being a leader worthy of building two statues outside The Garden.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d have to literally build him, then build one with him, Clyde and all the other dudes, if he wins a title.\u201d<\/p>\n
To get there, Brunson has to adjust, not just on the defensive end, but offensively, too. He can get his own shot at any moment, but far too often, the offense stagnates: It happened in crunch time against the Hawks when Brunson took eight shots in the final eight minutes while Karl-Anthony Towns took just two.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like Jalen Brunson has to play like Allen Iverson and John Stockton. He has to find the balance. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a hard transition for him because he\u2019s smart, and he\u2019s astute, and because he\u2019s smart and astute, he\u2019s aware of what happened,\u201d Marbury says. \u201cRight now, this is the first four years of him being the man where he\u2019s making decisions and he\u2019s going on the court. He\u2019s playing at the highest level and everything is in his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he\u2019s got all of the support. We are going to support him because we believe him and we trust him. We believe that. I believe that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the locker room after the Game 2 loss, several Knicks players pointed to the same issue: a lack of ball movement and fluidity down the stretch, when the Hawks closed on a 20-9 run to erase a 14-point deficit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll wait and watch and see if that\u2019s something that [Jalen\u2019s] going to do. Because if he makes that adjustment \u2014 if he plays like Stockton and Iverson \u2014 yeah. We\u2019re going to witness what we all started to believe in and trust in,\u201d Marbury says. \u201cAnd why we call him Mr. Clutch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marbury also believes Brunson needs more help \u2014 from both his coach and his co-star. He wants the Knicks to run more traditional high pick-and-roll with their two All-Stars \u2014 \u201cnot that Spain action,\u201d he says \u2014 and believes Towns has to be more forceful in demanding the ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cKAT\u2019s not going to get plays drawn up in this system with Coach Brown. He has to assert himself. He has to demand \u2014 he has to demand the ball come his way, man,\u201d Marbury says. \u201cIt\u2019s different when you demand something. When you command it, now it\u2019s like, \u2018OK, that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing. We\u2019re going there.\u2019 When he puts his hand up and demands the ball, everybody knows to throw it.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s one side of the ball.<\/p>\n
The other is Brunson\u2019s own matchup. Because McCollum isn\u2019t going anywhere. And a player used to diagnosing opposing defenses now must do the same to his own.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat he takes from [Game 2] and how he grows from that night \u2014 that\u2019s him. That\u2019s going to be the truth and true honesty in the next game,\u201d Marbury said. \u201cIt\u2019s not about playing harder or scoring more or not missing any shots. That\u2019s not it. It\u2019s evaluating how they play him. How am I going to play defensively?<\/p>\n
\u201cAm I going to submit and say, look, this is where I need help at? Am I thinking about knowing that I have a weakness right now and now everyone sees it? Everybody in the gym knew it. The whole world sees I can\u2019t defend C.J. McCollum, and I\u2019m gonna have to guard him in the next game.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow are we gonna prep? And how are you gonna prepare to play against him?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephon Marbury is asking for a pen and paper. The waitress brings him an envelope. To Marbury, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806,34,13992],"class_list":{"0":"post-716839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-knicks","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-knicks","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkknicks","15":"tag-playoffs","16":"tag-stephon-marbury"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116456514198625180","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}