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Stephon Marbury does not give a fuck anymore, which ultimately makes him the most relevant he's been in years. Starbury is back in the headlines again, this time for defending Michael Vick, after a summer in which he talked about playing in Italy once his Knicks contract expires, gave a batshit crazy interview on NBC (see below), and even offended people with his low-budget sneaker charitable work.
This is not even to take into account the fact that dude started his own talk show and impersonates Stephen A. Smith in the promos for it. This is not to MENTION that the guy was writing crazy blog posts for the NY Post, calling out commentors, writing shit like:
I guess we could ask people like Tony who called me a lowlife…and
"islesfan'' who said I was drugged up.
Let me ask YOU dudes a question. How would your mother feel if someone put you on blast in all the media and said you were on drugs in front of all your co-workers, your friends and family?
What is that to say about someone? I’m on drugs? OK.
You have to look yourself in the mirror and say I spoke about this
man and I don’t even know him, just what I heard someone else
say. That's crazy. Remember, the only truth to a rumor is “I heard…”
You don’t know about me.
You don’t know my life.
You heard about me.
You heard about my life.
You want to make me the clown…I’m not the dude on the ESPYs, getting carried on a throne. I’m not him. I’m the good guy, not the bad guy. I don’t want to be carried on the throne…I just want to walk among the people.
Quite simply, dude is starting to lose it. After years of being the NBA's whipping boy, being unfairly chastized for never winning a playoff series (T-Mac anybody?), being called out by Larry Brown, been miscategorized as a "shoot-first" point guard, and after getting scrutinized to no end for confident remarks misunderstood as arrogance, Steph has got nothing left to lose. He has alienated himself from former coaches and teammates, he HAS HIS OWN SNEAKER COMPANY (i.e. no big endorsements to lose), and he plays for the Knicks. And in this day and age when the NBA is ambassadored by the boring Wade, the calculating LeBron, and the "rehabilitated" Carmelo, you have to love a guy with this sort of candor.
The Vick comments, for example, were a breath of rare realness. Now, I'm not gonna even come close to endorsing Michael Vick's behavior, but I have to say that Marbury's remarks were pretty on point. Marbury was certainly off-base with calling dogfighting a "sport," but not so off with putting dogfighting on the same level as duck-hunting. And what really counted was that Starbury used the term "good human being" to describe Vick and talked about him falling into a "bad situation." Is there not room in the media for this voice of brotherhood and solidarity with one's fellow athlete? Outside of a few Falcons, I haven't heard many current pro athletes get behind Vick in this way. No one would dare jeopardize any public favor or endorsement deals by speaking so honestly. Again, what the fuck does Steph care? Nothing to lose.
My personal hope is that this is just the beginning. The further Steph falls down the gutter, the more license he has to speak crazily. The Recluse predicted that in ten years, Steph would transform into a crazy activist type, some sort of hybrid between Mike Tyson and Jim Brown. I personally see a lot of parallels with R. Kelly. Around the summer of 2004, it was easy to pair up Kobe with Kellz as the NBA equivalent to this pop culture figure. Both had just been accused of sexual misconduct, both were annoyingly successful, and both had recently been shit on by the biggest dogs in the game (Shaq/Jay-Z). That comparison only goes so far, however, as Kobe has become more and more rigid/phony, whereas R. Kelly has actually gotten crazier and more ingenuous, and in doing so has won the respect of his peers. Around the time of Best of Both Worlds, R. Kelly was on the verge of irrelevance. Beginning with the Ignition (remix), traversing through the Trapped in the Closet series, and spiced with quotes like:
“I’m the Ali of today. I’m the Marvin Gaye of today. I’m the Bob Marley of today. I’m the Martin Luther King, or all the other greats that have come before us. And a lot of people are starting to realize that now.”
...Kellz' lifepath is one of near derangement. And I can only hope that Starbury is headed to the same place. As of now, I can best compare Marbs to Tracy Morgan, a diamond in the rough that nobody ACTUALLY cared about until he showed the world his true insanity (where Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, Dave Chappelle, and Chris Rock fit into this mess, I don't know). I must admit that I was pretty proud of this analogy when I thought of it, but some quick internet researching revealed that great minds think alike, and the great mind of Sam Rubenstein made this same comparison weeks ago. Of course Rubenstein compared Marbury to Tracy JORDAN, Morgan's character on 30 rock, but given the current mental miscegenation of THIS-IS-ME + I AM CRAZY that constitutes Steph's character, I would have to say that the most accurate depiction of Marbury would be an amalgam of the Jordan/Morgan truth-fiction.
Marbury is a Tim Hardaway from which there is nothing left to ban him. David Stern should fear his voice. For the third year in a row, I am predicting great things for the Knicks, because they will finally be led by a man free of mental shackles. With a Zach Randolph-Eddy Curry frontcourt of excess and disinhibition, and with FGA-record-setters Jamal Crawford and Q-Rich still on board, the Knicks will be a glorious acid trip to behold. Guide them, Steph, to where they all ultimately belong.
posted by Dr. Lawyer IndianChief @ 8/23/2007 10:49:00 PM
46 comments
46 Comments:
Dr. L IC
You are the balls. Great post. I just wanna point out that NY3 said "You know, from what I hear, dogfighting is a sport. It's just behind closed doors." It seems to me that he was smart enough to make it clear that he didn't say it was a sport. He just said that it was considered a sport to some people. Small detail, but I think it's important to point this out, because the MSM seems determined to say that he condoned it when that clearly wasn't the case.
I'm a little disappointed that you didn't mention the media's largest running transgression against Starbury, which is the complete indifference to his charitable works. While the sneaker thing was well-intentioned (if ill-planned), his efforts to fight poverty are among the best in all of professional athletes.
I don't blame him for wanting to go to Italy. Ever been there? Italy is the SHIT. He's already got the means to live comfortably for the rest of his life and still help the disadvantaged youth. Between that option and staying in a big city where the press and public treat him like a substandard gladiator slave, the only surprise is that he's still on this side of the Atlantic.
absolutely perfect picture.
reminds me of a medieval ship of fools type motif.
Co-sign on everything here. It's worth mentioning that last night on Letterman Tina Fey said Tracy had recently been complaining to the effect that "America needs to start paying attention to the war and stop focusing on me and Michael Vicks!" Love it - Michael VICKS - fresh from the top of Morgan's Mind Grapes.
Also, it's in a similar vein to Henry's duck hunting bit, and I'm sure someone's made this point somewhere, but what about the lack of uproar over Cheney's quail hunting in comparison? I recall something about quails being somehow intentionally impaired, and the Daily Show referring to them as "quailtards," but haven't been able to find any specifics about the process.
And, yeah, I realize that dog fighting's a felony while quail hunting is not, but raising birds in captivity, impairing their ability to fly, and requiring that their sole purpose in life is to be shot by rich old men seems as cruel as anything I've heard from the Vick case.
I decided that Marbury has been miscast after hearing a particular quote from him. Interview from the 2005-2006 season with Larry Brown, paraphrased as:
Interviewer: How hard is it, having such a bad season? It must be incredibly tough to lose this much.
Marbury: Nah man this ain't tough.
Interviewer: Why not?
Marbury: Tough is watching my mom trudge through the snow without good shoes to work two jobs so she could support my family. This ain't tough. This is just basketball.
He might be a bit nuts but he's got a surprisingly balanced head beneath that towel he wears when he's on the sidelines.
didn't marbury donate a million dollars to katrina relief? his donation far exceeded anyone else's, if i remember correctly, including peyton manning, he of the many endorsements and new orleans roots.
as much as marbury fascinates me off the court, i still hate to watch him play. he may not be "shoot-first," but he's "dribble-a-lot". ultimately, with marbury, i think it comes down to: big heart, small brain.
"There is no list for which animals should be killed and which shouldn't. As a spiritual being, I respect GOD's divine order. We're all created by GOD and animals are GOD's creatures as well. I love animals and none of them should be harmed. However, we don't react the same when other animals are being killed for sport or the sake of human pleasure. Should we as a society stop wearing fur coats and eating meat or hold those accountable who are responsible for the demise of those animals?"
Yo, Starbs is like, "You're entitled to your own freedom, not to take others away. ALL OUT WAR!!!!" Also, I heard he's dropping 8 on the next DROPDEAD lp.
Stephon Marbury will turn out to be the bext great orator. I promise.
Liston
Good post, great topic. I do disagree on a few things, though:
You are dead on the money when you say "Stephon does not give a fuck anymore". He's definitely realized that the media will try to destroy no matter what (see Mitch Lawrence hatchet job in the NYDN after Marbury's "defense of Vick"); the realization came during and after the Larry Brown mess. Since then he's stopped playing the game with the media, and just let his actions do the talking. He's given money to not just Katrina, but donated $4 million to teachers, firefighters, and police (cops!) organizations.
He wrote the blog (which was in his own voice, too) as a way to reach out to the fans directly.
I don't think "the dude is starting to lose it", though. I think he's just reached a higher level of awareness. Like he can call out LeBron and Jordan for contributing to corporate greed, and know that people will support him for doing so. He's remade himself into Che Marbury.
On the Vick comments - anyone not sure what he's talking about should look up "Blood Sports" in wikipedia.
Steph isn't "falling down the gutter", he's rising above the gutter that the media drags athletes down into.
I hated the comparison to Tracy Morgan, if only because, in real life, Tracy is a d*ck, whereas Marbury seems just a chill dude who says whatever is on his mind. And right now, his mind isn't on basketball, it's on starting a movement....
PS: My favorite part of the Marbury's "Summer Madness" is that he left a post in the comments of his blog with his cell phone #. The cats over at Posting and Toasting debated whether or not it was it was actually Marbury who left that comment, and whether it was his actual number.
I finally gave it a call for the hell of it. It had a crazy ass message, like "yo, you reached Starbury, leave a message with your name and planet, don't state your aliases... Starbury something... something... beep"
It was hard to hear because Jay-Z's "What more can I say" was playing as the background music to his message.
I still don't know if it was really Marbury's # or not - I tried to call a second time to hear the message better, but someone picked up, but was disconnected quickly.
To say there was a "lack of uproar" over the Cheney/quail incident is kinda batshit crazy. That non-story was media fodder as long as there was something to report or make fun of.
i'm kind of with sml on this one. everything dr. lic says is right, but i don't think that marbury's "flipping out" shows he's losing touch with reality. that seems like an easy response to someone waking the fuck up from an disappointing career and life-path. he's rejecting a lot, and saying whatever he feels, but i don't think he's irrational or stupid (except for that one interview). this is a one-man revoution!!!!! these are growing pains, and he's flailing around as he tries to turn himself into something more than spoiled-ass, misunderstood starbury.
I've loved Steph ever since, when he was with the Nets, having the consequent bit of a rough time with the media, and finally, he hit them with: "The most athletic thing y'all do is jump to conclusions."
He's come a long way since then (the charity, the uninhibited television appearances, etc.) and I think labeling him as "crazy" is merely symptomatic of the tendency we have in America today of branding everyone who thinks or talks outside the box as somehow psychologically aberrant. Being normal in a world gone mad is insanity.
That being said, that talk-show appearance was one for the ages, and does put Steph in the exalted category of NBAers it'd be fun to pass the blunt with.
Insufficient attention has been paid to Orwell's observations on how in free England, unpopular ideas can be suppressed without the use of force. One factor, he proposed, is a good education. When you have been through the best schools, finally Oxford and Cambridge, you simply have instilled into you the understanding that there are certain things "it wouldn't do to say" -- and we may add, even to think.
His insight is quite real, and important. These cases are a good illustration, hardly unique. Starbury is the latest in a series.
As an update, it is behooving to checkout the BS post on the Fan House re: what Marbury meant on Vick.
This is real. He is what Kobe has always wanted to be in personality at this very momet.
the only thing kobe and marbury have in common, personality-wise, is that they both want to appear more intelligent than they are. the difference is that kobe is actually pretty smart.
my favorite part of that marbury interview is where he says he can't teach all the kids by himself, like he would be the best possible teacher a kid could have.
Yeah, that ball-hogging rapist is a genius. Let's get the man an honorary PhD!
Like Dr. LIC said, this team is gonna be cosmic. I mean you still have Nate Robinson on the squad! There is no telling how special a 38 win team this will be. Balkman, Jerome James and Mardy Collins are going to be brilliant supporting characters. Actually, fuck that, the whole roster is spectacular for dramatic purposes(Malik Rose, anyone?). This ain't your cousin's Atlantic Divison no more...
It's funny how the racial elements in our make up slowly sip out even as we scramble trying to cover our true meaning with the cloak of "humor". Why don't you say what you really mean? You think he is stupid and should continue to perform for your amusement. What do R Kelly, Marbury, Kobe and Tracy Morgan have in common, apart from the fact that they are all black? What? There no white people that you know, that would have made for a good analogy? You feel confident in your smugness, making dumb references that don't correlate, and if you are a black person, look in the mirror bro, that person staring back at you is ….. lost.
To Marbury's credit most athletes that go from dirt poor project kid to millionaire athlete/celebrity icon to punching bag for the media turn to the public with hostility and disassociation. Yes, he has a painfully difficult time articulating his thoughts through the channels of mass culture but the fact that he's doing it at the risk of being laughed at, villanized, and called a stupid nutjob for the sake of something he sincerely believes is right is admirable in my opinion.
I'm already over "what Vick did was fucked up, but . . ." There's no but. All comparisons, from duck hunting to leather wearing, are spurious; the implication also seems to be that Ookie was trying to reveal America's inherent hypocrisy. Some things are fucked up and legal, some things are cool and illegal. Senor Mexico picked an activity that is both fucked up and illegal. Saying he didn't know better is incredibly insulting.
The highlight of Steph's career was the 2001 Allstar game. He drained two 3s in crunch time to help the East pull off the comeback.
I always though Steph looked like an aristocratic otter. The blue one I think.
I'll be watching the knicks every time they play. This should be great.
PS Vick had shirts and headbands promoting his criminal enterprise. All is forgiven.
The second pair of And 1 Marburys were tight. I got those kicks on my birthday sophomore year for our last game of the season.
Great post as usual with one exception.
Marbury was certainly off-base with calling dogfighting a "sport," but not so off with putting dogfighting on the same level as duck-hunting.
You and Starbury are both wrong here. These two things are not the least bit comparable. Duck hunting consists of shooting a bird once, typically, not breeding a bird army for blood-letting, putting birds in "rape stands", hosing birds down and then electrocuting them, hanging birds, slamming birds to the ground repeatedly until they are dead, etc. It is simply savage and completely wrong.
There's a reason dogs are man's best friend, not ducks.
andy, i was with you until the last line. the difference between hunting and dogfighting to me is not, as lots of people keep saying, that dogs have a special status in our society. it's that breeding the animal for fighting, treating them inhumanely, and killing them purely for sport is the difference.
the "dogs are a man's best friend" argument basically means that cockfighting and the like is totally fine, which it's not.
i do think the outrage would be substantially less if vick were involved in cockfighting. and there would be a lot more jokes about it.
Duck Hunting and Dog Fighting are not comparable at all.
Also, too bad the Knicks have David Lee to ruin the spectacle. Dude is really good.
B.R. -
Okay, I'll give you the cockfighting argument. In a way, I wish it was cockfighting - as you pointed out, the humor would run rampant.
Perhaps I was a little emotional in that last line. I definitely think I suffer - like a large portion of the populous I would argue - from putting dogs in that "special societal place" so in a way they seem almost human, especially the way mankind generally sees them, which is exactly why this has turned into a bigger thing then if Vick, say, had been doing this with possums or snakes. There's not much emotion there. Anyway, the way ducks are hunted, regardless of whether or not one agrees with hunting on principle, is far and away more humane, and as you mentioned, they are not bred for fighting, treated inhumanely as in dogfighting.
You do know Steph took those comments about Vick back, right?
Sorry to rain on your parade, but I learned not to expect great things from any team led by Marbury, except Lincoln.
Dogs will always be different. Part of that is because we evolved with them, and they with us. We will always hold them above other animals, and that includes cats, pigs, horses, and cows, and other animals that may serve us just as much or more. And I don't think we should hold it against ourselves for feeling that way. In other words: it's not a valuable exercise to equate ducks with dogs. The processes of dog fighting and duck hunting are different, but it's dumb to say there's no value difference between the animals themselves.
It's just a component of human stuff to give dogs a little extra psychic value. Now this turns into a philosophical argument, but you can choose the side where logic conquers all, or you can admit that part of being human means accepting and dealing with human stuff.
Lemme change that. I should have said that the exercise has value as a way to illuminate our biases, but it doesn't have any practical value in the matter at hand.
"didn't marbury donate a million dollars to katrina relief? his donation far exceeded anyone else's, if i remember correctly, including peyton manning, he of the many endorsements and new orleans roots."
Uh, Kevin Garnett would like a word with you.
"Stephon Marbury will turn out to be the bext great orator. I promise."
Dude gets a new hookup with some upstate, indoor heady sativa and suddenly we're dealing with Bob Dylan 2? Nah...
"I hated the comparison to Tracy Morgan, if only because, in real life, Tracy is a d*ck, whereas Marbury seems just a chill dude who says whatever is on his mind. And right now, his mind isn't on basketball, it's on starting a movement...."
Just because he's aloof and really, somewhat shy doesn't make the guy an asshole... necessarily.
"Yeah, that ball-hogging rapist is a genius. Let's get the man an honorary PhD!"
Do you truly believe Marbury is a more intelligent person than Kobe Bryant? How would you compare?
"Like Dr. LIC said, this team is gonna be cosmic. I mean you still have Nate Robinson on the squad! There is no telling how special a 38 win team this will be. Balkman, Jerome James and Mardy Collins are going to be brilliant supporting characters. Actually, fuck that, the whole roster is spectacular for dramatic purposes(Malik Rose, anyone?). This ain't your cousin's Atlantic Divison no more..."
I had the Warriors penciled in for 35 wins last year, and they play in the West... but I don't believe in the Marshmallow Towers of NY.
"You feel confident in your smugness, making dumb references that don't correlate, and if you are a black person, look in the mirror bro, that person staring back at you is ….. lost."
That is some amusing, misguided ignorance.
And salt-bagel - quit making sweeping generalizations which are inapplicable to everyone, and especially the readers of FD.
wv: eakrj - "Eek RJ, Gilbert is ragging on you again"
The gist of my statement was that it tends to be part of human society that dogs are given more value than ducks, etc., etc. I apologize if it came off differently.
When you can support your claim that this is a "sweeping generalization inapplicable to everyone," I promise to pay attention. To me, my statement seems fairly evident. I think most people reading this blog instinctively make that value judgment, whether it makes sense or not.
Stephon's just participating in the eternal law.
Salty: "We will always hold them above other animals, and that includes cats, pigs, horses, and cows, and other animals that may serve us just as much or more."
That right there, is an ignorant generalization. A Hindu might raise an eye-brow to you, you small-minded jerk. Not too mention, MANY more people.
Not all people have the same view as you.
Nellie needs to coach the Knicks in 2008-9.
it would be a great tragedy if nellie were to leave the bay. i would argue that any team with steven jackson, monta ellis, and baron davis comprising the backcourt is slightly more FD than one with stephy, Q-Rich, lil' Nate, and the other 3 point shooting swingman without a conscience. although the addition of solid prospect brendan wright does dampen things a bit, even though he's still a forward.
no, if nellie were to leave to coach any team in the east, i would send him to atlanta to teach marvin williams how to run the court like a madman/shoot threes every possession and shape josh smith into a point guard.
What? There no white people that you know, that would have made for a good analogy?
Anon 2:08, I'm trying to think of a white entertainer that's somehow on par with RKelly as far as his visible indiscretions, and failing. Not because white people aren't capable of it, but just because...Bill Wyman and Roman Polanski are so far out of the public eye now that the analogy fails right there.
You can't make the analogy because when a black entertainer winds up afoul of the law, you can legitimately play devil's advocate and say race could have been a factor in the prosecution and pursuit of it. Not so possible with white entertainers. If say, Justin Timberlake, was taping himself fucking 14 year olds, his career would be over....for at least the next 5-10 years anyways.
Hindus I know might raise an eyebrow, but they wouldn't go off with the name-calling. I know some other Hindus who would agree with me.
I think you're overinterpreting how sweeping I mean my statement to be. And anyway, generalizations aren't crimes. I understand that there are exceptions to what I said (yourself, for instance), but that doesn't make it untrue for everyone. I guess I'm guilty of making a generalization in that sense, but if you want me to feel like a bad person about it, you might as well quit.
The more important point I was trying to make was that there are logical reasons for taking your side, and other, emotional reasons that many people share for taking the side that I stated. And if you choose to ignore those other reasons, you're making a mistake. I hope that restates it in a better, less offensive way. I'm not gonna argue it further. I don't think this is like saying the sun goes around the earth.
bagel- you do know that they still EAT dogs in parts of Asia, right? Dogs may have a special place in our culture, sure. But to suggest that is true for ALL cultures is just plain wrong.
On an unrelated note, I know most people on here don't give a fuck about international ball, but Team USA + Kobe = SERIOUS.
Why are anonymous commenters using the FD board as some kind of bastion of misguided socio-linguistic political correctness? Bagel's just saying in a culture that has evolved over thousands of years of canine-human domestic interaction and breeding, it's not moral equivocation to put canine lives above that of a wild duck. And that by no means is a defense of hunting, which I find personally distasteful and cruel-- but not in the same way I would feel about the unwarranted shooting of domesticated cat or dog, bred evolutionarilly *by* humans to rely instinctually *on* humans.
saltbagel was making generalizations, but he also specified that they were exactly that.
And he's correct in what he is saying. Dogs and humans have a special relationship that goes back thousands of years. Some of the turbonerds who do evolutionary behavior publish really cool stuff on the human/dog reltionship and how it's evolved.
Even if this relaitonship didn't exist, it's irrelevant. The whole point of people being so enraged at Vick was that he was responsible for how the dogs were treated. He had the capacity to choose under what conditions they lived and how they were treated. He chose to provide an environment of pain and suffering.
I know people who are chemically dependent or have been in the clinky clink that I would judge to be decent people despite their shortcomings, but would anyone trust a person who did these things to animals with the task of babysitting their kids?
BTW Animal abuse is the most preserved commonality, in terms of aberrant behavior, found in all serial killers.
don't even try and step into my "american justice" cypher ... yes, serial killer mutilate pets. when they're 12, and in ritualistic ways. also, everyone knows there are no black serial killers.
This is a prosecution based in the United States, regarding actions that were taken in the United States. Therefore the general feeling of US citizenry towards dogs is pertinent to the case, or at least I think it should be. If Vick had a dog-fighting ring in a dog-eating nation then maybe things would be different.
I realize the multiculturally erroneous point was made that "dogs will always have an elevated place among mankind" (paraphrased), but its semantic nonsense to pretend that this has much to do with a real trial. Maybe in a global sense what he did is less morally abhorrent than otherwise, but he's being tried by the US, not the UN.
Shoals, damn good post though - regardless if I feel that dog fighting isn't an enormous amount worse than cockfighting, etc., it's not like there isn't other shit going on behind the ring.
I loved the first half of this article and your willingness to point out Marbury's refeshing candor-- warts and all. But think it went off course the second half (although I understand humor may have been you chief aim). I tend to agree with SML here. I don't think Marbury has lost it, but would agree with the SLAM article you posted that Marbury is that "good kind of crazy". He was just being playful as all of us do time to time with no camera around. Marbury just doesn't give a shit about the camera anymore. His charity work is simply legendary at this point. But again, I loved the first half of this article.
Finally, you are right that the Knicks will definitely make some noise this year. probably grab the 6th or 7th slot and get a first round upset.
i'd like to propose a new sport,,,the running of the dog,,,anytime you see a dog in the street run it over,,,lmao,,,oh wait,,,i already do that,,get off vicks nutz,,,it's funny how judgemental people are,,hurting people is wrong,,,invading independant nations is not only wrong,,,it's about the most illegal thing that u can do,,,the moral line between right and wrong,,will always be subject to an "individuals morals",,,this overscrutinizing of athletes is so typical of the new america,,,it's ok to kill, torture, and hold people without trial,,,just so long as it's in the interest of national security,,, get a fucking clue america,,during the time it takes you to read this post we will have lost even more rights as american citizens,,get a clue,,,and fuck sports!!!!!
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