When Larry Brown agreed to take over as Knicks head coach, questions immediately began to swirl about what it would mean for all-star point guard Stephon Marbury and his role with the team. Some pundits said Marbury would be traded; others posited that he would be moved to the shooting guard position so that rookie spark plug Nate Robinson could run a more up-tempo offense. Maybe it was the oppressive heat in the city this summer that brought about such foolish speculation. Marbury at the point is an ideal fit for a Larry Brown team.

First, let’s deal with the punditry.

Yes, the two clashed in Athens at the 2004 Olympics – Brown even asked that Marbury be sent home – but once the games began, the two worked together to lead the Americans to a substantially better finish than they could muster in their previous international competition, the 2002 World Championships.

But those who expected Marbury to be traded clearly don’t understand the salary cap, nor do they pay attention to payroll management trends in the league. Marbury is owed $77 million over the next four seasons. There are few teams with that kind of cap room, and even fewer that are interested in risking it on a 28-year-old guard with a lot of mileage on surgically repaired ankles and knees.

Most teams are moving toward to the San Antonio-Detroit model, which favors of a deep roster of talented role players rather than a traffic jam of superstars making max money. On top of that, Brown is not known for giving rookies like Robinson much leeway in his rotations.

Brown’s personnel tendencies are one of several factors that make the second suggestion – that Marbury should move to the shooting guard slot – equally ridiculous. Brown’s teams are defensively oriented – twelve of his last 13 units have finished in the upper half of the league in Defensive Efficiency (points allowed per 100 possessions), and six of his last seven units have ranked in the top five. A backcourt featuring the 6-foot-2-inch Marbury and 5-foot-9-inch Robinson would be at a substantial height disadvantage virtually every night.

Although both Marbury and Robinson are ball hawks, their lack of size would enable opposing guards to see the court better, feed their big men in the paint with less obstruction, and generally run their offenses more smoothly. Since the Knicks lack a proven shot blocker and have a surplus of shooting guards, more of their defensive focus will have to come from the perimeter, which makes the pairing of two short guards that much less likely.

The biggest reason Marbury’s role will change little under the new regime is that he’s a very good fit for Brown’s offense. Brown’s teams maintain a slow pace; only twice since 1994 has one of his teams played at a faster tempo than the league average. Similarly, Marbury’s teams have always played among the slower paces in the league; only his Phoenix squads finished in the top 10 in Pace Factor (possessions per game), and that occurred in a particularly slow phase for the NBA.

Fans who harbor dreams of the Knicks becoming an East Coast version of last year’s Suns should abandon them now. The Knicks’ offense will continue to be half-court oriented, and unlike Lenny Wilkens’s offense, which essentially asked Marbury to play one on five, he should thrive in Brown’s motion-oriented half-court schemes.

Brown is known for his nomadic tendencies; he has now coached seven of the league’s 30 teams. But he had his biggest success with his two-year stop in Detroit, where he won the NBA championship in 2003 and took the Pistons to Game 7 of the Finals last season. The point guard for that team was Chauncey Billups, who scored (16.5 points per game) as well as he distributed (5.8 assists per game) last season. While Marbury is widely considered a “shoot first” point guard, his assist numbers argue vehemently that he distributes as well. Marbury ranked fourth in the NBA last season with 8.1 assists per game, and his Pure Point Rating, a statistic created by New York Sun contributor John Hollinger that subtracts turnovers from assists and divides them into minutes played, was 6.43, which places him among the top 10 in the league.

In other words, in moving from the Detroit to New York, Brown upgraded at point guard. Now his new point guard should see similar returns. It’s all the other positions that will prove problematic.

The one cause for concern will be Marbury’s questionable defensive reputation, which could hinder his relationship with Brown. Though he usually ranks among the league leaders in steals, Marbury has never been known as a rigorous on-ball defender. Defense, however, is a team effort, and only once (with the 2002 Suns) has Marbury played on a team that finished in the upper half of the league in Defensive Efficiency. This year should be the test for whether Marbury’s reputation is based in fact.

The off-season focus on Marbury and the underlying sentiment that something in his game will need to change is endemic of one of sports’ worst tendencies: Blame the superstar. Admittedly, Marbury made himself a lightning rod for criticism last year with his “I’m the best point guard in the league” comment, but it wasn’t his play that made the Knicks into a 33-49 mess; it was the lack of quality minutes from his teammates.

Summertime speculation proclaimed that the first challenge for Brown and Marbury would be to get on the same page. Pending his defensive effort, they’re almost there. The real challenge for the Knicks will be to get everyone on the team to read the same book.

mjohnson@nysun.com