Woe is Steph

Watching Knick games can be very depressing these days. And by these days I mean generally over the last seven years. So let’s get past all the past B.S. and focus on the current crop hovering over Madison Swear Garden where the only place you won’t hear a curse word about the Knicks comes from the guy sitting on the bench.

You know him, he’s that pretty boy in the designer threads with no visible form of injury, the hundred tattoos (which for sports players is like saying he’s got two eyes and two ears), and a smirk that belies a frustration you know must be eating away at him. His name is Stephon Marbury and he can sit on your bench too for the cool cost of 21 million dollars.

Yes, he’s being paid to sit which gives him enough time to think about his outfits.

So why are the Knicks even bothering with him? Why keep a pariah there that you have no plan to utilize? What, Jerome James hasn’t stole enough money from us to sit on the bench? You want to make noise about Stephon? Well yes I do. Because at the very core of it all, he’s still the most talented player on the Knicks.

He’s not the best point guard in the NBA as he touted himself to be a few years back but he’s still a lightning quick point guard who can create his shot but has a hard time creating for his teammates.

I remember the very first game he played as a Knick. Homecomings are fun for any sports athlete and Starbury seemed to relish playing in the World’s most Famous Arena in front of family and friends. He was all smiles and assists in piles. Unfortunately his style of play was too quick for those Knicks to even know what to do with. They were not ready for his passes because they had never played with a physically superior athlete like that before.

That’s not his fault. His fault is this: he didn’t care after that. He’s much like most athletes who consider the money more or less as a trust fund that they are entitled to as opposed to the bonus of getting paid for doing something you love like the rest of us who have found what we love to do. Being gainfully employed in what would seem like the most ideal spot should have been enough for Steph but even the prospect of playing at home appealed to him after a while.

It was enough to collect a paycheck, put points on the board and in the stat sheet to justify his gigantic contract. But what we had little knowledge of then was the fact that the Knick hierarchy was just as lazy and loose with their money as Steph was with his talent. The Knicks cared little for on court talent jelling as they did the bottom line of it all of attracting well known names (regardless of how well they were playing; see: Hardaway, Penny) and putting them in jerseys that read New York.

Unfortunately that’s never been the New York style. Just take a look at every single New York franchise that has ever won. Every team had the tough as nails kind of players that projected New York’s own mentality. The fact is, their championship teams were a mirror reflection of the city. The kind of people that had to fight to earn and fight to be respected to ever make anything. Frank Sinatra said in his ode to the big city: if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Its true. As a matter of fact, its still true. It’s a city that is as real and truthful to those that come here for riches that America has to offer than any other city in the U.S..

But in that ever growing populace that New York employs, there are those that feel they should never have to work or earn the respect they want. Unfortunately that’s what we have here. Steph has never appreciated what we all see in him. A point guard that can outplay the opposing point guard but one that must shed his me first kind of play.

But I’m not going to fault Steph here on this occasion. Because Knicks management had enough reason all through the pre season to rid themselves of the headache that they were sure to have. Now it has grown to full blown migraine status and no motrin is in sight for the Knicks.

their woes in the front office were supposed to be solved with Isiah Thomas’ exit but apparently they don’t know how to take out the trash either. Frankly, Starbury juice doesn’t have a future in New York anymore. That much is clear and certain to more than the Garden faithful. The fact is, the Knicks have to move on and yet they want to strangely keep him on the bench as he sulks and continues to be fodder for television cameras to feast on.

Because as long as he’s around, the New York media will continue to ponder over it. In the city where talk radio doesn’t sleep either, its going to be the talk of the town and trust me when I say that the radio stations and their talk heads will be able to spin this in ten million ways and then there’s the opinions of the callers that will eventually call in to voice almost the same exact opinion.

So I don’t blame Starbury for this situation. I blame him for his laziness in not allowing himself to reach his own potential, but I don’t blame him for this. The Knicks and Stephon Marbury need to cut ties and it needs to happen quick. Because if change won’t come why even bother to look towards a brighter future for the Knicks?