Both Teams Played Hard
Both Teams Played Hard

I know, I know…after a title like that, why even go on, right?

But go on we must

Stephon Marbury, however, is now likely going nowhere before Thursday’s trade deadline as it was recently revealed that he will miss the remainder of the season while he struggles to recover from ankle surgery. I suppose devastating ankle injuries are prone to occur when your kicks cost less than your t-shirt.*

Now, it would seem the only thing left of Coney Island’s Finest’s New York homecoming is the inevitable buyout this summer. Personally, I’m heartbroken. To date, this had been the greatest year of this great experiment, and I was truly hopeful that it was going to ratchet up another notch over the next few months.

Alas, it seems a quiet weekend announcement of Steph’s shutdown is the last thing we’re gonna get. So in light of the meager fanfare all this has received thus far, Both Teams Played Hard is taking a look back at “Starbury: The Year That Was.”

June 30 - And…we’re off. Here, the point guard/sage philosopher kicks things off by talking about Isiah’s “power move” to get a “youthier” “left-hand, southpaw, switch-it-up, you-think-he-shooting-right-but-he-really-shooting-left” “beast.” I think he’s talking about the Zach Randolph trade.

July 1 - Where can I even start? In this now-infamous “Marbury Tape,” Stephon appears on Mike’d Up for an interview where he rambled incestently,** providing us with some of the best impromptu soliloquies since Brando enlightened the world to the horrors Col. Kurtz has seen. Here he explains how he doesn’t play for shiny stuff because it can’t make you billions of dollars…no it cannot. He goes on to seemingly talk about making out with his sister, unveil his theory on how his ability to differentiate Isiah Thomas the player from Isiah the man is equivalent to him starting a shoe company, admit that he wants the Knicks to be like the Mavs because they lost to Golden State, inform us that he never slept with Kevin Garnett, and contrast happy tears from bad tears. Confused? Yeah…so was he. And if all that is not enough to get you interested, he also answers his phone mid-conservation and explains “That’s my better half…my better ho,” and ends the discussion by dancing in his chair as he screams at host Bruce Beck about how much he wants “to see the spit on your mouth.” Just watch.

July 18 - Marbury vows to go play pro ball in Italy after he finishes out his current contract. I think he and his “better ho” had recently gotten back from vacation and he said this to a reporter:

“I’m not just thinking of doing it, I’m going to do it. My wife loved it there. It’s like a [David] Beckham thing.”

Due to his goldfishian attention span, however, my guess is that he forgot all about this promise instantaneously.

August 23 - Like a miniature Buddha, Stephon weighs in on the Michael Vick scandal. He’s so wise.

“I think it’s tough that we build Michael Vick up and then we break him down,” Marbury said. “I think he’s one of the superb athletes, and he’s a good human being. I just think that he fell into a bad situation.”

“I think it’s tough,” Marbury said, according to Albany TV station Capital News 9. “I think, you know, we don’t say anything about people who shoot deer or shoot other animals. You know, from what I hear, dogfighting is a sport. It’s just behind closed doors.”

September 12 - In what had to be the best courtroom testimony since Col. Nathan Jessep, Starbury took the stand in Coach Zeke’s sexual harassment trial. Here, he revealed that he convinced one of Anucha Browne Sanders’ young, female underlings to escort him from the strip club they were lounging in out to his SUV, where it’s possible they had some chicken and maybe some sex…you know see what happens. He went on to testify that he had indeed called Sanders a bitch and we also learned from Sanders that Marbury’s cousin (unfortunately not Sebastian Telfair) slept with some Knicks intern (predictably a St. John’s University student) in that same truck. The best part, however, is that none of this is even the best part. I really wish we had some video on this, but the Pulitzer-quality Daily News reportage will have to do:

Afterward, as Marbury raced to a blue Rolls-Royce trailed by reporters, he called the trial a ‘tough situation’ and refused to speculate on the possible outcome. “It’s not for me to judge,” he said. Marbury tried to change the subject by making fun of the reporters’ ties and shoes, noting that he was wearing expensive tan lace-ups, then drowning out the pesky questions by breaking into song. “I got some new Starburys that are coming out,” Marbury said before disappearing, a pitch for his reasonably-priced basketball shoes.

November 13 - Thus begins Starbury v. Madison (Square) as Steph skips his team’s game in Phoenix after an alleged altercation with Zeke. Supposedly, Eddy Curry told Starbury about Isiah’s plans to start Mardy Collins at point instead of him in mid-flight, and Stephon moseyed on up to the front of the plane to have a little pow wow with his coach. There was one third-hand account of a physical confrontation, but the consensus tale is that it was merely a verbal spat. Best of all, according to one anonymous source on the plane, he said this when he got back to his seat:

“Isiah has to start me. I’ve got so much shit on Isiah and he knows it. He thinks he can fuck me. But I’ll fuck him first. You have no idea what I know.”

The original quote was censored for publication in the Daily News, so those are merely my own presumptions at which curse words he used. It could have just as easily been “thunder pussy,” “potato-cock” or some other magical sailor speak made up by and only known to him. Because as we all now know, we have no idea what Stephon Marbury knows.

December 3 - Marbury’s dad dies shortly after suffering a heart attack while in Madison Square Garden watching a Knicks game. Okay…nothing funny about this. But I guess we all now know how to make a post like this come to a screeching halt.

Oh well. Nothing else matching his previous antics has taken place since anyway.

Hopefully, we can pick this saga back up this summer though. Or better still, maybe Marbury will get a buy-out from Jimmy Dolan and make good on his promise to go head to Italy. Because if there’s one thing that has made America so great, it’s the way we export our culture to the rest of the globe. And sharing our one true national treasure, Stephon Marbury, with another continent should go a long way in squaring things up with the rest of world after that whole messy quarrel prior to the Iraq invasion in 2003. Who really remembers what that whole argument was about anyway? Even Steven, I say.

* Yes, I’m aware he doesn’t wear them.
** See what I did there?

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