A5-10 November finally had passed with Stephon Marbury back in the Knicks’ starting lineup, coexisting with, if no longer loving, Isiah Thomas, coming off two good games out of three.
December opens with the Knicks guard getting news much worse than he has been benched, or that he thinks the Coach and President of Basketball Operations has told him to go home, or that his teammates have voted against his immediate reinstatement to the lineup. It began last night with the worst possible news any of us can ever receive, a death in the immediate family.
Don Marbury, husband of Mabel, father of Stephon and six other children from the Coney Island basketball family, died last night in St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan. According to a Marbury confidant, he died of a heart attack. Marbury, who was getting booed during the Knicks’ 115-104 loss to the Suns, found out about his father’s death after the game. Don, who was suffering from chest pains at the game, was rushed to the hospital.
Isiah Thomas, as he addressed the media, had a face curiously longer than his team’s effort probably warranted. By the time the media was allowed into the locker room, well after the maximum 15-minute cooling off period mandated by the NBA, the room was clear of everybody but Zach Randolph, Quentin Richardson and Malik Rose.
Marbury appeared belatedly to get items out of his locker, reappeared minutes later. Before heading down the hallway toward the door, he suddenly stopped.
“You want to know how?” he said, cryptically, apparently to about 20 waiting media members, before leaving the building amidst six Garden security persons.
“Jesus, that’s how.”
“He wasn’t talking to you guys,” said Rose, dressing at his locker. Within the half-hour, when the Knicks confirmed this wasn’t a trade, wasn’t a firing, something a lot worse, the scene suddenly was explainable.
No word, of course, on how long it will be until Marbury returns to the lineup. No way of telling, either, how long the fans will cut him a break after he returns.
The Knicks, one game removed from a 104-59 debacle against the East’s best team, had run up and down the court for three quarters with the Suns, who might be the best team in the west. Down by 13 early, they actually had taken the lead, even almost had the support of the fans.
Then the ball stopped moving and, not coincidentally, the shots stopped falling, and the boos and “Fire Isiah” chants started raining down with Suns’ jumpers and lay-ins. In the end, the Knicks had no line of credit in The Garden bank of faith, even for three-quarters effort, good by their standards.
Marbury had been booed after a first-quarter turnover and missing free throws. In the fourth quarter, which he finished with 13 points and a decent job on Steve Nash, he took it like all the Knicks did as the 13-4 Suns were breaking open the game.
Knicks fans boo because their team is 118-186 since Isiah Thomas took over, because they have made the playoffs once since Marbury arrived and not won a game.
They boo because they know this team is going nowhere of consequence, single out Marbury for abuse because he refused to bend to the rule of accomplished point-guard maker Larry Brown, then two weeks ago left his teammates in Phoenix and flew home after being threatened with a benching.
They boo him, in part, because the hometown guy always gets it worst when the team fails. Because New York knows point guards, which the shoot-first Marbury is not. Because the 13-4 Suns, with two conference finals appearances in the last three seasons after unloading Marbury, essentially have become the model of what the Knicks might be if they had the patience to clear cap room by letting contracts expire.
They boo not because, as Marbury implied last week, fans just follow the leader but because they recognize their team essentially does not had one. They booed last night not knowing Marbury’s father was dead, but now, if they have an ounce of decency, won’t boo him again for a long time.