Real Talk

So, Stephon Marbury's alibi was plastered all over the front page of the New York Times' Metro section Thursday. Kind of a conspicuous place. Nobody really mentioned it.

All the details were there. Robert "Mr. Lou" Williams, the dean of Coney Island's basketball courts, a respected coach and mentor, lay dead of a heart attack at age 64. The man who guided uncertain and raw basketball talent through the projects and into high schools, colleges, professional leagues, prison leagues ... everywhere the ball goes into the hoop ... was gone, and the most prominent of his former students was back in the old hood, paying his respects. Bawling his eyes out, to all accounts.

Mr. Marbury, who left the Knicks without public explanation on Tuesday, spent at least several of his hours away from the team at the housing project, called Surfside Gardens.

“My dad passed away at 3 o’clock, and Stephon was here by dinnertime,” said Robert Williams Jr., 40, Mr. Williams’s son.

Dwayne Tiny Morton, the head basketball coach at Lincoln High School in Coney Island, where Mr. Marbury played ball, said, “I mean, there comes a time when you have to stop what you’re doing, even if it is playing professional basketball, and pay your respects.”

You're damn right there is. But you won't hear much about that in the media, the same sources that called Marbury's decision to leave the team before Tuesday's game "bizarre," and unbalanced;" the Post's Mike Vaccaro stayed classy by calling both Marbury and Isiah Thomas "stubborn, ego-maniacal megalomaniac[s]," which happens to be both insulting and pretty awful writing. ESPN's J.A. Adande tripped over the coffee table hopping up onto his high horse and calling Marbury a "disgrace," while not forgetting to yank out every cliche in the book: insubordination, bad example for the teammates, etc. Thanks for your insight, J.A. Another gem of a paragraph: "So much for leadership and defense." Hey, boys, instead of paying this clown real paper money, why not just order a transcript the next time Lenny from Forest Hills calls into WFAN and pocket the difference? I guarantee nobody will notice.

The worst part about all this was that even as the media was KILLING Marbury for missing one game, Zach Randolph was in the middle of missing TWO GAMES for his grandmother's funeral. Nobody had a problem with that, of course. (Well, except the Minnesota Vikings. Assholes.) So, in the end, what was Steph's crime? That he didn't explain himself beforehand? Knicks beat reporters ain't his momma, and they ain't his daddy. He doesn't owe anyone an explanation, especially if he thinks -- as he clearly did -- that he had permission from the team to leave.

Think there's an apology forthcoming? Think again.

This is the tough thing with Marbury, and to a lesser extent, Isiah -- it's extremely tough for most NBA fans to know where they're coming from. To be sure, both are fonts of bizarre behavior; strange antics, even stranger proclamations, sex with interns in trucks, sexual harassment, etc. Poor decision-making on a rolling basis.

And yet, at moments such as these, we're reminded of from whence Marbury and Thomas came. We're reminded that both began with absolutely nothing but their own skills and wits, and overcame the steepest of odds to wind up at the top of their respective professions. From the no-joke ghettos of Brooklyn and Chicago to, as MSG would have it, "the heart of New York," and for all the riffs on wasted talent or squandered opportunities, think of the thousands of other supremely talented or bright or charismatic kids you've never heard of and never will.

I'll speak for myself and the vast majority of Y2K's readership when I say it's impossible to imagine what it took. If their trials, of which we can know practically nothing, altered a personality here or tweaked a conscience there, well, that's largely fair game. But the wholesale judging of character that occurs whenever one of these guys steps outside the realm of what a group of fat, white, middle-aged geeks considers normal is more than unfair -- it's unconscionable, and often disgusting.

Both these guys faced down their demons long before Vaccaro and Adande opened up their big yaps. Spike made this point in "He Got Game," as Ray Allen cruises around those same Coney Island streets with Big Time Willie. Jesus won't slide off to Atlantic City on a school day, so Denzel's heroin connection from "American Gangster" (respect) schools him to the facts of the matter.

Look, I hate to break it down to you this way, but it's not 'cause they love you, man. Huh? The bigger a nigga get up in this motherfucker, the more they hate you. A'ight? I mean, you can play ball and all that, but shit, that don't mean shit to these niggas around here. Put a cap in your ass, just on D.P., that's on the string, so you got to watch your back.

And then what? I bet most of you already know what's coming.

Willie: You know, a lot of great ballplayers came out of Coney Island, but most of them didn't amount to shit.

Jesus: What about Stephon Marbury? He made it.

Willie: [quickly] Oh, true dat, true dat, yeah yeah, but he's one of the few.

Jesus: If he can make it out, so can I.

No kidding. So when Mr. Lou keels over and the ball-playingest segment of the city and possibly the world goes dark, let's not pretend there's not an obligation for its shining light to return, Phoenix Suns or not.



Now, it's not a coincidence that Marbury got pounded while Randolph -- no favorite of the media in his own right, of course -- walks into the locker room scot free. Selena Roberts pointed this out today as well -- the whole operation reeks of a Dolan hit on Marbury, from the "confusion" over the excusal to the quick and public fining to the nasty comments seeded around the various sources. One way or the other, Steph got sold down the river here by someone, and it stinks.

He's a strong-willed individual in a league that values conformity. At times, he clearly teeters into asshole territory. At others, he's a goddamn inspiration. Does he pass the ball enough? No. Will he ever lead a team out of the first round of the playoffs? He will not. Is he the Knicks' savior? No, and no non-retarded citizens of the Republic ever thought he would be.

Does any of that make him "a disgrace?" Judge for yourself. We all have different standards for that sort of thing.