Starbury's Gone Totally Round the Bend

Lectures Knicks on what it takes to win championships

By JOSH ALPER

Updated 8:43 AM EST, Thu, Jul 2, 2009

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You know how they used to say that the only living things that would survive a nuclear holocaust were cockroaches? They were wrong. Stephon Marbury would survive, shielded from the blast from the self-created bubble of nonsense that has kept him insulated against reality for his entire NBA career.

His time with the Knicks is no different. In the course of an interview with Marc Berman of the New York Post, Marbury played revisionist historian about nearly every moment of his Knicks tenure.

"They spent 3 million on a 29th pick. They could've given $3 million to Anucha [Browne Sanders]. I knew it was personal. It's about ego and power. I've never been so happy to be out of someplace. The way I was treated, lied to, grown men doing this that have stature."

The Knicks handled the entire Sanders mess very poorly and probably should have just settled the case before they were publicly embarrassed in court. That doesn't excuse the fact that the behavior of Marbury and his cousin helped bring the suit, and added immeasurably to the eventual embarrassment thanks to Starbury's performance as a witness.

"Mentally, what I had to deal with, the process with [ Mike] D'Antoni, the president [Donnie Walsh], it was mindboggling. Two people can't make a decision and they have to go above them to Mr. [James] Dolan."

Cue the tiny violins for the guy who got paid millions of dollars to do nothing before the team let him walk off to a playoff team with no repercussions.

"When Larry Brown saw me in Charlotte when we played them, he said, 'It looks like you died and went to heaven. I told him, now I know what you went through."

On this one, you have to assume Berman transcribed Marbury's words incorrectly. He had to mean, "now I know what I put you through," right? More than either of the two quotes discussed above, this shows just how little Marbury relates to the truth of the world around him. That's a point echoed in his admonition that the Knicks will never win a championship by playing D'Antoni's style of basketball.

That's kind of like Neville Chamberlain telling you that you'll never stop the rise of Adolf Hitler if you fight back when he annexes Czechoslovakia, isn't it? How would either of them even know what they're talking about?

There's one more quote, which is actually the only true thing to pass Marbury's lips during the course of the interview.

"Mentally I was damaged and didn't even realize it."

Thankfully, we all realized it the second you decided to tattoo your number into the side of your head.

Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com.