Thing I Must Confess

I’m a Stephon Marbury fan.  I have been since the Georgia Tech days.  Just as I latched on to Iverson back in college, I was similarly drawn to Marbury.  Maybe it’s because he was on the cover of SLAM quite a bit.  Maybe it’s because he was already a legend before I even knew about him.  Maybe it was because he was the face of And 1, which was a pretty cool brand back when I was in 9^th grade.  Whatever the reasons, Marbury was a new path for me back then.  He was brash.  He was cool.  He was really, really good.  Of course, I had his shoes back then.

When he came to Minnesota, I remained a fan.  He and KG were the new guard; two guys who were going to set the league on fire, win some titles, and revitalize my interest in basketball.

(Remember that Marbury started playing really well during Jordan’s retirement from the Bulls, and that the Bulls subsequently won 30 games in two years.  ‘Twas a dark time for Bulls fans.)

I’ve professed my love of the turn of the Nets before, and a lot of that was the pairing of Marbury and Keith Van Horn.  I know how ridiculous that sounds, but I was deeply attached to both of those guys, not to mention Kerry Kittles of one sock fame.  Even as it was becoming quite apparent that there wasn’t much to Marbury outside of scoring, I was entranced both by his potential and by his ability.  He was a different point guard then we’d seen: big and strong, but still very athletic and an unparalleled handle.  How could a 16 year old not be fascinated?

The Phoenix trade was the beginning of the end, I think.  Steph was traded as I was entering my sophomore year of college.  Most of my friends preferred college basketball to the NBA, so I wasn’t quite as plugged in as I had been.  Hoopstv.com had folded, Insidehoops.com was basically unreadable, and no one at Page 2 really cared about the NBA; it was easily to lose track of a guy on the West Coast.  I wasn’t up early watching Sports Center, I was in Greek Philosophy.  I couldn’t be bothered to watch the Suns play the Clippers when I had an intramural whiffleball game (side note: I threw two complete games and hit two homeruns in the finals as we won the title).  Outside of the highlight filled playoff series against the Spurs, I wasn’t really checking for Marbury anymore.

By the time he became a Knick, I was jaded.  His New Jersey stint was framed as a homecoming for the Coney Island native, and that hadn’t turned out too well.  There was no reason to hope anything would be better in New York.  And it wasn’t.  Steph was slow and selfish, two things he hadn’t been before (he might have been a selfish person, but he was still a good point guard).  It didn’t take long to realize that it was over.  Yeah, I’ve enjoyed the jokes because I’m really good at jokes, but I wish they didn’t have to exist.

Against all odds, I’m on board again.  I watched the Celtics game just to see Marbury play.  He looks like he hasn’t played NBA basketball for a year.  Doc Rivers has him guarding small forwards.  He wears number 8 and has a 3 tattooed on his head.  But he’s actually trying.  Maybe being the league’s laughingstock for years taught him that he’s not the kid from The Last Shot anymore.  Maybe it’s an illusion.  But whatever it is, I’m hooked again.