Marbury’s Exit Could Signal a Change in Climate

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The league’s most dysfunctional team took another crazy turn yesterday when Stephon Marbury skipped town before the Knicks’ game in Phoenix, apparently upset that the team decided to demote him from the starting lineup after Sunday’s home loss to a winless, Wade-less Miami team.

Instead of suiting up to face the Suns, Marbury flew back to New York. Needless to say, he’s also unlikely to play in tonight’s game in Los Angeles against the Clippers. Once he landed, he text-messaged reporters for WNBC and the New York Post and told them he had Isiah Thomas’s permission, but Thomas didn’t corroborate that part of the story.

It’s possible he’s played his last game as a Knick. Trading him isn’t realistic because no team is crazy enough to take on his contract, which still has more than $42 million left on it, so buying him out would be the only plausible alternative. That would be quite a hefty pill to swallow, but owner James Dolan has bought out other big contracts over the past few years, and this one might remove a source of negative public relations in the wake of Marbury’s bizarre behavior this summer. Additionally, it would clear more playing time for the likes of bench energizers Nate Robinson and Renaldo Balkman.

That still strikes me as unlikely — New York has almost nothing to gain from such a scenario unless Marbury agrees to a serious discount on the buyout — but it’s hard to know what the Knicks’ plans are for their highest-paid player since, as per usual, the team immediately tried to keep a lid on the situation.

“Any type of penalty or suspension will be in-house and we’ll try to keep it within the confines of our team. This is an in-house matter with our team and we’ll keep it and leave it at that,” head coach and team president Thomas said.

Either way, I’m not sure today’s news is as negative for the Knicks as some would like to make it. In fact one could argue, in a roundabout way, that it’s a good thing. While The Entitled One’s absence shows how shocked he is that somebody dares to call him on his increasingly shoddy play, what it says about the Knicks is much more positive.

At its heart, the reason Marbury was so upset was because at last the Knicks have decided to stop coddling him. No longer are they going to send him out there for 40 minutes a night regardless of how lazy his defense gets or how many plays he breaks off or sullen his demeanor gets. Suddenly, there’s an expectation that he needs to produce results and play nice with the other kids in the sandbox, or he’ll end up on the bench just like anyone else would.

Thomas’s statements on this issue at yesterday afternoon’s shootaround were very telling. “We need leadership from that position at the point guard, and we also need defense,” he said. “Those are the only two things that I require from that position.” In other words, he doesn’t care if Marbury scored 20 points a game, and he’d actually prefer he didn’t given that he has two beasts in the low post that need to get the rock. And Marbury’s example isn’t the only one. There seems to be a newfound trend toward accountability up and down the Knicks’ roster, one that may not produce results yet but is likely to leave the team much better off in the long run.

Another example is that reportedly the Knicks are considering putting Eddy Curry on the pine; instead, opting to go with the more productive David Lee. I’ve been arguing for this arrangement ever since the trade for Zach Randolph, as Randolph does the same things Curry does but better, while Lee is a perfect compliment because he doesn’t need the ball and can get second shots on the weak side.

But New York had been playing Curry because Thomas had invested so much in acquiring him. This recent move indicates he’s more focused on winning games than puffing his chest out about the Curry trade. Additionally, it also may indicate he’s feeling increasingly desperate about his continued employment by the team, though it’s hard to imagine Dolan wielding the ax so quickly after signing Thomas to a contract extension last March.

Nonetheless, the other pieces of New York’s lineup seem to fit together a lot better with Marbury out of the rotation. For instance, Jamal Crawford now becomes the starting point guard, which makes sense since he’s about the only guy on the team who can throw a decent entry pass, and the Knicks’ offense is mostly predicated on feeding the post.

Second-year pro Mardy Collins took over as the other backcourt starter last night, but once they’re healthy most of the minutes are likely to go to Nate Robinson and Quentin Richardson — who would slide down from small forward at times to create more playing time for the dynamic Balkman. In the meantime, their injuries could temporarily open the door for the long-forgotten Fred Jones.

This is the team the Knicks should have been playing all along. Our Martin Johnson made almost this exact argument before the season even started, in fact — that the Knicks were handcuffing themselves by playing the players Isiah spent the most on instead of the ones that were most deserving of playing time.

And as a result, this could be some of the best news the Knicks have had in a while. Yesterday’s lineup shake-up might not produce immediate results — not with New York on a brutal West Coast trip that can beat down even the best of teams — but in my book, the Knicks’ chances of making the playoffs just went up. Just as he’s done with the Nets and Suns, it seems Marbury can help the Knicks most by leaving.

jhollinger@nysun.com


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