Re: Wake up and smell the coffeee....
son of oakley said:
Grinch, your points are valid if it weren't that Marbury poses himself as such a negative energy for the team. Last year Kurt wanted to crack his skull, he told Wilkens to shove his criticisms of Steph's D, he massaged his way through practice, and now "the best pg" doesn't even want to play the position if he's not free to get into one-on-one scoring duels.
These things take a toll on teams and destroy whatever fragile chemistry coaches have tried to establish throughout all these personnel changes, and I believe the tenuous chemistry is in large part to blame for some of our more passive, woeful, and gutless stretches we've had during Marbury's reign here.
In short, if Steph can ever find a way to put his ego and needs second to those of the team he might be an asset, but it's 10 years and counting now. When, oh when will this come?
And that's all before the fact I think he's a quintessential "tweener": a guy with skills enough to play two positions relatively well, but not pure enough to really settle into and own any single position.
Steph will always be a good player, but never a dominant player, IMHO. So whay put up with all the negative energy and distractions? Are 20 ppg players on bad teams really that hard to come by?
the steph criticisms take on lifes all of their own.
1st it was he'd never relent control of the offense enough to be a 2 guard...despite his claims that all he wants to do is win and he doesn't care how it comes about, i remember some slights at steve nash about how you can avg. 15 and be an mvp candidate, this was about the same time as the "best pg" comment which you know full well you are using out of context.
now its he wants to play 2 guard too much so he can score.
i dont think stephon was ever the player people tried to pigeonhole him to be at least not in new york, at 1st he was actually getting criticism for passing too much(remember the 1st couple of months?) when he 1st got to new york....now its that he wants to shoot too much.
i think he simply wants to be involved in winning and when they aren't winning having a diminished impact grates on him because he feels he can change that by being more agressive in pursuit of shots, but thats not LB's plan for him yet because jamal and nate cant take the pg burden consistently or he doesn't trust them to. he scored alot today and the knicks offense didn't have a problem with or without him out there , thats how it is supposed to be.
he obviously trust marbury the most because he is playing him 40 minutes a game, primarily at pg he may not give him his full trust but its certainly more than anyone else, especially at pg.
Larry brown said he wanted marbury at the 2 before marbury did , they sold him on it and now he cant wait especially since they are losing with his role in flux...this isn't a selfish argument its one of patience, of which marbury isn't showing enough.
the knicks chemistry looks fine to me actually it looks great, at least on defense and defensive chemistry is what did the knicks in last season and if steph was the problem on offense they could cut him minutes significantly without a problem on defense at all, in fact it would leave him fresher so the defense would probably be better.
marbury also had a problem with tim thomas too last season , we dont know the intimate details of their squabbles so how can you convict marbury as scapegoat is beyond me, all i know is they are gone and the knicks team hasn't been tighter in years.
stephon marbury is not a problem for this knick team , he is one of the solutions.