Stephon Marbury has been out of the NBA since 2009. His second act as a basketball messiah in China gives him no reason to feel any regret about leaving the NBA behind. But Starbury seems upset that he left the league without much choice, and thinks he knows what him a pariah early in his professional career, long before he got to his worst years in the NBA with the Knicks.
According to an article in ESPN's The Undefeated published Tuesday, Marbury believes that his career began to decline after he demanded a trade from the team that drafted him in 1996, the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Marbury stated, "I remember those days when it wasn’t fun with what I contributed on and off the court. I thought the league was mad about me messing up their money in Minnesota."
Marbury said that he demanded a trade from the team after the 1998-99 season, a move which ended his dynamic duo with a young Kevin Garnett. The former NBA All-Star also stated that he was eager to leave Minnesota because it was way too frigid, which caused his car to do too many unwanted donuts while driving on the snow-filled, icey roads.
Plus, commentary about Michael Jordan's sneaker production costs in comparison to Marbury's own affordable $15 kicks pissed off former NBA commissioner David Stern, Marbury claims. Marbury said his critique propelled him to be exiled from the league. "It was basically set in stone of who they were going to push and how they were going to push them,” he said. "The people who complained, who had strong personalities, were basically speaking truth and what’s real instead of falling back, just staying quiet and not being penalized for it. Guys now have more of a voice."
You can read the entire article here.
