A sad end....

By almost any measure, Stephon 'Starbury' Marbury has had an interesting last few years in the NBA. Even if you're not a basketball fan, the story is interesting. His career spans like this: Raised in Coney Island in Brooklyn, one of the most highly recruited point guards of all time, played one year at Georgia Tech, up and down NBA career (highs - 2x All-Star; lows - benched for the first 15 games of the season by the Knicks).
With his talent level, he had all the potential to become a great NBA point guard. Instead, at 32, the words mercurial and enigma, rather than great, come to mind. Almost three years ago, Stephon Marbury came out with a pair of affordable basketball shoes ($14.98) that he and a few other NBA players wore. Great idea and message. Yet, in the same year, he gave this now infamous interview:

Watch these segments in particular:
(1.46-1.55) - Not starting well
(4.30 - 4.51) - uh oh
(7.06-7.19) - no way
(7.27-8.07) - are you serious?
(8.41-9.15) - Unbelievable!



Fast forward a few years. The Celtics took a small risk and signed Marbury to a contract where they could release him at any time. He played as a backup point guard, and became at least serviceable by the end of the playoffs. They offered him the veteran's minimum (1.3 million/yr), and Marbury rejected it to look for more money. Heading into August, he is is still unsigned.
Now comes this. Marbury came up with an idea to post a continuous stream (24 hours a day) of his life for the next 7 days. Not 1 day, but seven. In this stream, he has done everything from freestlye rap, dance with shaving cream all over his face, cry while listening to a Kirk Franklin song, eat vaseline, etc. Here's an example:


(2.08-2.51)

And then there's this: (1.45-2.00)


Some team will sign Stephon Marbury this year. In fact, if I were an NBA GM, I would sign him because of his ustream on www.justin.tv. I'd feel remorse not signing a person whose career path has taken the proverbial u-turn time and time again. If you waded through the segments in these clips, it becomes much more sad than funny. If Marbury doesn't play another minute in the NBA, it will not be the last we hear of him. Something is seriously wrong with him. The sooner the people around him realize that, the better. The warning signs are there for EVERYONE to see.