This doesn't make the Knicks better on paper, but, then again, Stephon Marbury didn't often enough make the Knicks better on the court, either. So the inevitable will be official by the end of the week. We have a story about it in the Tuesday edition of Newsday.
It's not official yet, but all indications are that Marbury will be given word sometime this week that he need not make plans to be in Saratoga Springs next Tuesday. Not that Marbury doesn't already have a sense that he isn't wanted. He'd been hearing enough of it throughout the offseason and it seemed pretty obvious when Chris Duhon was signed that the Knicks planned to move on without him.
All indications are, Fixers, that they will by this weekend.
I was also told by a few guys earlier on Monday that Stephon played in the pickup games with the other Knick veterans at the MSG Training Center. Marbury had been working out on his own, so it was a bit of a surprise to see him jump into the run.
Know this: Marbury is in good physical shape. Wherever he winds up -- my bet is Miami -- he'll likely play well. This is what I believe has led to Donnie Walsh waiting so long before he pulled the trigger: it's not easy to hand almost $20 million (buyout) to someone and have him go play for the veteran's minimum elsewhere at potentially an all-star level.
But everyone in the NBA by now knows you get two sides of Starbury. You get the driven, unstoppable offensive force who can still get to the hole and knock down a three. But you also get the petulant, self-involved and intolerable personality that can destroy the sanctity of a locker room and undermine a coach. (In other words, good luck Erik Spoelstra).
Here's a guarantee where Marbury won't be headed: Charlotte.
One guy at the training center on Monday said the uneasiness of the other Knicks veterans when Marbury was around was palpable. There was just a sense of disdain. "You could just feel the hate," he told me.
This is addition-by-subtraction for the Knicks, a means of cleansing the franchise; removing the face of a forgettable era in the franchise's history. There is still plenty left to malign in the new era under Walsh and Mike D'Antoni -- Eddy Curry's conditioning, Zach Randolph's immovable contract and the inability of anyone to play perimeter defense -- but Marbury had so often represented the reasons why it was easy to hate the Knicks, from his ubiquitous frown under a towel at the end of the bench to his care-free grin after leaving the courthouse where he testified about his tryst with a team intern, which crippled the Garden's case in the sexual harrassment trial eventually won by Anucha Browne Sanders.
I struggled to cover Marbury because at times he was very likable and many times you could see the wide-eyed precocious kid he once was show himself. I had great respect for his dedication to pregame preparation; his focus as he went through his methodical routine. Shot after shot after shot. Like a machine. I don't think he was as dedicated to the game film and scouting reports, but he certainly was dedicated to himself.
When he lost his father last December, we shared some words. But he and I both knew it would be back to the grind in no time. I always quote Bob Sugar from the movie Jerry Maguire, who tells a client, "It's not show-friends, it's show-business."
It should have been a great story; the Brooklyn-born basketball star who came home to lead the Knicks and was given the Garden as his personal playground. But it instead became a cautionary tale: give a person too much rope and they just might hang themselves.
