Stephon Marbury’s China debut
Stephon Marbury (photo. Chad Griffith)
Whatever kind of failure you might think Allen Iverson‘s season has been, Stephon Marbury would gladly take two scoops of that failure with M&M’s on top.
After Tweeting/smoking/crying/Vaseline’ing his way right out of the NBA over the summer, Steph recently signed with the Shanxi Zhongyu Brave Dragons of the Chinese Basketball Association, and on Sunday made his debut.
Marbury put up 15 points (0-6 3PA), eight assists and four steals against Dongguan Marco Polo. Down by one in the final seconds, he tried to set up Brave Dragons star Mo Taylor (27 pts) for the game-winner, but Taylor missed at the buzzer. Marbury appeared to be in decent but not great shape, and reportedly had a hard time guarding opposing PG Tre Kelley, a former South Carolina standout.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Marbury’s team is considered 16th-best out of 17 teams in the league. (Hey, he’s playing for the Wolves again!)
Seriously, though, I know it’s easy to pick on Marbury, but he’s still rich and he seems happy to be playing where he’s at. Surely he’d love to have a starting NBA job in a city that loves him while heading to the All-Star Game — just like Iverson — but he’s still getting paid to play ball.
If Marbury plays well in China, do you think he’ll be back in the NBA next year?
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February 1st, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Heckler says:
never.
his NBA career is done.
sad, but i always actually rooted for this dude to succeed.
February 1st, 2010 at 5:16 pm
karizmatic says:
no I think his NBA career is done, and if he were really good enough at this point to play in the NBA, shouldn’t he be dominating in China on the 16th out of 17th best team in the league?
February 1st, 2010 at 5:25 pm
bsteezy3 says:
Nah…that Vaseline shit pretty much ended Marbury’s career. There are too many good point guards coming out of college for the league to seriously consider Marbury. He’s not really a “headliner” anymore…that is unless you’re a hardcore basketball fan who remembers him in the late 90s. Sadly, a good number of NBA fans (who buy season tickets) have forgotten about Marbury–its about the new generation now.
February 1st, 2010 at 5:45 pm
justlovethegame says:
16th-best out of 17 teams in the league. LOL
February 1st, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Lakers Nation says:
The NBA should have a program that teaches these new millionaires how to use their money. If I were a franchise, i’d hire a mgr to make sure the kid doesn’t go crazy with the money and hurt his long term value – i.e. Stephon
February 1st, 2010 at 5:49 pm
KnicksFan84 says:
90′s is over folks. So are the 00′s. These guys can’t play at their best forever. Sure Marbury can still play, same with Francis and A.I. etc but just not like when they were in their prime. NBA is a young man’s game. Unless they make a “senior” NBA league, these dudes will just go overseas and finish out whatever basketball they got left in them.
I would love to see what Steph could do as a coach/GM/scout in the future if he so chooses to go that route.
I wish him luck.
February 1st, 2010 at 6:35 pm
D.H. says:
@5 Lakers Nation
Actually Steph has been super smart with his money. He’s got a lot of business on the side and reportedly has a very active management team that looks after his finances. What he need was a good shrink to help him with his mental stability.
February 1st, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Promoman says:
@ Lakers Nation
The NBA, along with the NFL, NHL, & MLB, have mandatory workshops and seminars that the players that players attend to learn life skills. Dudes like Marbury, Iverson, and other knuckleheads have been catered to for so long that their bullshit’s become ingrained in their DNA. the saddest thing is that Marbury handled being benched may better than Iverson and he didn’t get another chance while Iverson acted like an ass and got an All-Star trip.
February 1st, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Ryan says:
Stephon is happy. Because he’s happy, those who aren’t happy will tend to pick him apart.
He’s been a gentleman from my twitter experience with him, more than willing to promote my books and products when I barely know the man other than online. I’ll always root for a good guy.
As for his game, he’s more than able to contribute to an NBA team. Hopefully he gets another shot, if that’s what he truly wants to do with his life.
February 1st, 2010 at 7:25 pm
netstar says:
stephon marbury will NEVER play in the nba again.
he burnt every bridge and was a cancer to every team he played on.
February 1st, 2010 at 8:07 pm
dagwaller says:
I wish that there would be a Club World Cup every 4 years. It could alternate with the Olympics, with World Championships coming in the odd years. The NBA, the D-League, Chinese League, all the different Euroleagues (or however they want to organize their leagues), etc played. International rules, a team from the top 4 in each league (or just the champion, or the finalists from that year).
Think of all the exposure international, U-18, D-League, etc players would get.
That’d really show us what it means when a player like Trajan Langdon stars for his Russian team. Does that mean that he could play minutes in the NBA? We’d see when his team plays against the Magic, or the Lakers.
February 1st, 2010 at 9:36 pm
asmaticasiatic says:
In my opinion, as long as you get to play the game you love and get paid it doesn’t matter; he already experienced the NBA so it probably doesn’t matter to him; just enjoy it while you can…
February 1st, 2010 at 10:13 pm
loc says:
I watched the Justin.tv shit and it was absurd, I’d never sign him. All jokes aside, he will need some mental help by the looks of the things, and traveling in the way he is can often take a tole mentally. Hopefully he adjusts well to China, has fun playing basketball, and if he does REALLY well i think he could get to Europe and play on a quality euro team making decent money.
But NBA? Doubtful.
February 2nd, 2010 at 3:36 am
808 says:
Thing about it is, last time I saw Starbury wearing an NBA uni, he was just tentative as F#^&. He was no way near the aggressive, explosive player he was in his prime…you can see that dude has lost a lot of confidence. Yah, he might talk a lot of ish and appear cocky, but you can just see in the way he plays….the Starbury era was over years ago.
I cheered for this dude as well. I even got into an argument once of how Steph was better than Jason Kidd! What the hell was I smoking…
February 2nd, 2010 at 3:39 am
808 says:
And one more thing: When you say “Mo Taylor, 27 pts.”, are you talking about Michigan’s Mo Taylor….played with the Clips a couple of seasons?? Is that the same one?
February 2nd, 2010 at 8:27 am
jay says:
bench scrub…no way he should be back in the league..he ruined four teams…need i say more!
February 2nd, 2010 at 9:05 am
Love says:
I wish Stephon the best in whatever he does. He is a good guy and can play ball. He is getting to do what he loves.
February 2nd, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Big V says:
Coming from a bigtime Steph fan, it’s highly unlikely that he’ll ever suit up for an NBA team ever again.
Everybody knows he can still ball, but his negative reputation precedes this almost completely by now.
He also didn’t turn a lot of heads playing in Boston, which I don’t completely blame him for, but it is what it is. I guess he can play a couple of seasons (or more than likely, less than one) in China, and then come back to the States and call it a career.
February 2nd, 2010 at 10:54 pm
Audrey says:
Stephon can still play in the NBA. Look at the records of some of the teams. Trust me they can use him.
Even his old team the Nets.