Starbury or Star-buried?

My first question: Is Stephon Marbury insane? A guy with that much talent and he’s refusing to play basketball? Asked about his Knicks contract recently on ESPN, Starbury made his opinion clear: “I’m prayin’ for it to severatize.” I looked up severatize on Urban Dictionary but only found one entry by a user called Starberry3.
Speech impedimentization or not, Steph is a two-time All-Star. He’s averaging 20 and eight for his career, proving that similar stats alone don’t lead to good relationships (Isiah averaged 19 and nine). Speaking of Isiah, Marbury isn’t perfect (he also said that on ESPN), but let’s not forget the Knicks basically froze him out during pre-season. Basketball Arrogance founder Paul was there for a few practices at Skidmore. He said the coaches barely talked to Starbury. Weeks later, during the season, the Knicks organization starts trashing Steph for refusing to play.
In a funny way, it’s like the Iverson-we-talkin-bout-practice situation but twisted around. Marbury actually went to all the practices, but then he wasn’t played in the games. We talking bout games here. Not practice. Games. We talkin bout a two-time NBA All-Star not playin in the games! I mean we talkin bout games! (Repeat until laughter in the journalist audience finally peaks).
My new question: Are the Knicks insane? You are the Mickey Rourke of the NBA. You used to be good, but you’ve been reduced to a punchline. Only difference is that Mickey Rourke has clawed his way back to the top with “The Wrestler.” Marbury should have been the Knicks’ Wrestler. Here’s my motto for Steph: Two-time All-Stars always deserve one more chance. Someone please fly over the Big Apple with that hanging behind your plane. Seriously, do it. I’ll pay you when I’m 25 and rich because I’m the NBA agent presiding over a three-time All-Star.
Actually, LeBron will be the Knicks’ Wrestler when they acquire him in 2010. He will resurrect the franchise and take them to the promised land. LeBron could quit basketball today, claim he is the second coming of Jesus, and gather a decent following.
The Knicks could have been amongst the best in the East with Marbury this year. It’s easy to forget they had the choice to play nice. “I was told I had a clean slate,” Marbury told ESPN. For some reason, I trust his sincerity. Don’t forget he was once a kid who made it out of Coney Island to one day play professional basketball, and now he runs a company that provides cheap sneaks to kids.
Now he might end up in Boston. Hmm… a two-time All-Star joining the defending champion Celtics. Maybe he’ll play extra nice and come off the bench. Which brings me to my first announcement: NBA backup pointguards: tape your ankles.

Are the Magic For Real?

What an evocative question. If asking the unlucky residents of Florida, the response is predictable: of course! The Magic have the best record in the league!!! Yes, currently, the Magic sit as the 1 seed in the Leastern Conference with a record of 33-8. This record puts them a game ahead of Cleveland in the win column and a game and a half above the mighty defending champion Celtics. In addition, even more impressive is their road record (17-5), and their record against San Antonio and LA (4-0). However, on the other hand, we saw a similar first half showing from the boys in blue last year. Yeah, the Magic have unequivocally eclipsed their hot start in the fall/early winter of 2007, but almost the same exact roster (omg they added Mickael Pietrus a shooting guard who cant shoot and has been injured!) didn't really do shit in the '08 playoffs.

All together, the ESPN argument that the Magic are an elite team is pretty much regular season masturbation until this team knocks off Boston or Cleveland in the playoffs. And until then, I will take solace in that while the Magic have definitely improved, teams like LA,Boston, and San Antonio definitely save their best stuff for when it matters most.

Lebron Thinks he is God

As a Celtics fan, one might say I’m in denial or attempting to avoid reality by insulting the C’s recent opponents. But I’m really not kidding myself, the Celtics are on a big-time skid, and were massacred last night due to the undeniable greatness of the man most commonly (and disappointingly) known as King James. However, despite the fact that Lebron is legitimately the best player since Michael Jordan (sorry Kobe!), this guy just needs to cool it. On one level, Lebron is completely inauthentic. Choosing #23 (Jordan), his business is business attitude (Jordan), and his little smoke clap before games (Garnett), all were established while Lebron was still a little high schooler. Like Barkley has previously touched upon, LBJ23 does not need to copy others to launch his image. While by going to New York or wearing #23 ‘bron maximizes his publicity, only by demonstrating his own unique character will Lebron stand out as a separate entity from the stars of his time. In general it’d just be nice if it didn’t seem like all of his actions were pre-meditated and contrived.

I’m just going to come out and say it. Plain and simple, the dude is a megalomaniac. Look at the smoke clap, pictured on the right and referenced above. After unnecessarily tossing the white dust 12 feet into the air, Lebron poses as Jesus Christ, basking in the heavenly cloud he has just created. The guys thinks he is a god, and with pretty much all of ESPN lining up to give him a back rub, it’s sometimes hard to figure out how much of this ego-tripping is his fault.

To put it all in perspective, roughly 5 years ago, the league was facing serious image issues. Much of wealthy suburbia was concerned with the “gangster image” and thus, ratings and attendance were down. In response, many bball fans turned to the NCAA. Yet, in the past few years, the NBA has been back on the rise, mainly due to the drastic increase in talent and the emergence likable young stars. Unfortunately, I question whether this trend will continue, for once the common journalist starts to view Lebron in a more reasonable light, people may respond to his antics differently. The media loves to build players up and then tear them down. And even though Lebron stands tall at 6’9 280, even he is human, and transitively susceptible to these challenges that all players eventually have to face. Because no matter how many assists ‘bron records, the guy still needs to grease his temples in order to fit his inflated ego into the locker room doors.