Tagged As: Knicks, Lakers, Staples Center, David Stern, NBA, Marbury

I have come to the conclusion that no matter what Donnie Walsh and Mike D’Antoni do this season for the New York Knicks, the mere existence of Stephon Marbury will confound them this season.

I say existence because the Knicks actually banished Marbury from being in the same locker room. You have to be a pretty cancerous force when the team that is paying you millions of dollars does not even want you on the sidelines in warm ups.

Still, Marbury found a way to pop up and be a distraction for the Knicks. On Tuesday the team was in Los Angeles to play the Lakers at the Staples Center and Marbury decided to by a ticket to watch the game from a front row seat.

Every time the Knicks players brought the ball up the court there was Stephon. Every time they missed a defensive assignment, Stephon was there. Every time the Chris Duhon turned the ball over, Stephon was there.

Apparently he was in town at his Los Angeles home for “business” purposes. He was either conducting that business while talking on his cell phone for two and a half hours or the “business” was talking to reporters after the game.

I guess he was sitting near avid-Knicks fan Spike Lee. Hopefully Lee is of the persuasion that Marbury is a terrible, terrible locker room player. Hopefully Lee is writing a sequel to Do the Right Thing in which an overpaid ball hog decides to leave town.

I am not saying you have to burn down Sal’s or anything, but maybe they could destroy a blacktop court in Coney Island and a character who is a playground legend that has been terrorizing the area after failing to live up to his expectations simply leaves.

The Knicks ended up losing 114-116, faltering in the fourth quarters. I am wondering how long it will take Walsh to file a restraining order against the angry point guard. I can only imagine it would make David Sterns day to be involved in that meeting.

I can imagine David Stern with a smile from ear to ear talking about the how the restraining order is just another step in the game of basketball more open to fans across the United States and the world now that it has punished a player that insidiously infects every team he has every been on.

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