Stephon Marbury watched LeBron James host the ESPYs last weekend and apparently was amused. While guest hosting a blog for the New York Post on Friday, Marbury ripped James several different ways, seeming to call him both a bad person and a clown. Here is the quote:
“You want to make me the clown…I’m not the dude on the ESPYs, getting carried on a throne. I’m not him. I’m the good guy, not the bad guy. I don’t want to be carried on the throne…I just want to walk among the people.”
I believe this goes back to the spring when Marbury got upset at some things LeBron told the New York media before a game with the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. In brief, when asked whether he would ever have discount shoes like Marbury’s year old $15 Starbury line, James pretty much said he and Nike have a higher standard. I remember the interview, I didn’t think LeBron was doing it with malice. However, it did come off like he was a taking a cheap shot at what Marbury is trying to do and sounding like a Nike elitist. Which, by the way, he is.
From a public relations standpoint, the Starburys have been a hit. He was just in Cleveland promoting them this week. He says he isn’t doing it for the money, although he is surely making some, in addition to his $17 million a year salary.
I do not know Marbury personally. I do know a couple of years ago, he proclaimed himself the best point guard in the NBA. I know he has a reputation around the league of sometimes being selfish. He famously has never been on a good team. Being from New York and playing for his hometown team like James, perhaps he wishes he was more well liked around the league. Perhaps he wished he got them to The Finals. Perhaps he wishes he was on Team USA. Perhaps he wishes it was him hosting the ESPYs and hosting Saturday Night Live. He does like the spotlight of television, he hosts his own show in New York.
Then again, perhaps LeBron did look a bit silly with that ESPY stuff. Marbury made two appearances at Cleveland malls this week, two more promo appearances than LeBron will probably make anywhere in Northeast Ohio this summer. So he is “walking with the people” more. And, obviously, he’s not afraid to point that out.
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Sabrina enter thee ARENA you hot little MACHINA.
The 90’s Bulls won CHAMPIONSHIPS with “run of the mill chumps” riding Jordan’s coattails. Hell, Jordan was so good, people were convinced that Scottie Pippen was a HOF’er too! My ass… what’d Scottie accomplish without Superman? A whole lotta jack squat. Lebron IS that good, he IS fantastic, and with run of the mill players, he’ll win a title, possibly next year.
Alan, drop your arms to your sides, one on each shoulder, now PULL. there ya go, head removed from upper colon. Well done.
marbury is not only an underachiever but he is a sh………….it,a big one too. evens the knick fans wish they had an unselfish,easy going SUPERSTAR like lebron not only on their team. i heard some of them a cancelling thisr season ticket for the next two years..antbody interested?……….t thought so
get over urself dude…ure a neva been u and ur cheap shoes…third world countries dont even want them
They don’t make a Starbury big enough to fit my man! (:
No matter how many babies Bronnie brings on I’m his first. He’s all man, all mine, and James! Who needs marriage?
I thought LeBron’s girlfriend’s name was Savahnna Brinson. Who in the hell is Sabrina James?
Savahnna to you, Sabrina to Bronnie. Sorry Joe, you can’t have my babies.
I just commented to say that I enjoy alan t’s take on things.
Josh, that’s just plain ridiculous. You’re comparing the 90’s Bulls to the Cavs??? Without Jordan, the Bulls won 47 games during the regular season, and would have advanced into the Finals if not for the infamous Hubert Davis phantom foul. If you’re asserting the Cavs would not be in deep, deep, deep, deep lottery do-do if James retired to become a monk in a Nike monastery in Outer Mongolia, then young man, it’s time for you to be joining Lindsay Lohan in rehab.
I bet the Cavs could take an 8 seed in the East even without LeBron. They’re not THAT BAD.
Gotta agree with alan t. here. The Scottie never doing anything after Michael thing is kind of bogus as evidenced by alan t.’s example. Also, when he left Chicago, he was old, slow and a shell of his former self. Make no mistake about it, even though he was a jackass (hitting girlfrind/fiancee/wife, refusing to go into a game because the last play wasn’t called for him), Scottie Pippen was a great player. There is NO ONE anywhere near his ability and skill on the Cavaliers (outside of James).
IMO, the Cavaliers, how they are presently constituted and without James, are a lottery team. James, himself, was good for at least 20 wins this season. So maybe you’d be looking at a 30-52 team without James. Maybe better.
The Cavs are 6-1 in games Lebron sits out. Explain…
Scottie Pippen is a slightly more athletic Drew Gooden. Anyone who doesnt see that obviously drinks the Alan cool-aid. How bout I join your mother in rehab, Alan? Obviously having a walking mistake like you to answer for would be enough to send anyone toward an 8-ball of coke.
The Bulls, outside of Jordan and his overrated Robin, were pretty awful. The comparisons are striking actually. Z = Luc Longley…. Andy = a cleaner, healthier, less kooky Dennis Rodman…. Drew could easily fill in as a Horace Grant type… Even Gibson reminds me of a young BJ Armstrong (with a better game).
I understand, guys. To an average simpleton who knows nothing about basketball, a mega-star like Lebron James can often be so good, his teammates look pale by comparison. It happens. People who actually follow the game and dont just read ESPN.com to get a spoon-fed opinion on everything know what kind of talent is on this roster, and that a move or 2 will be enough to contend for a title year in and year out. Some people get it, and some just dont.
Explain? O.K., Josh. LeBron conveniently sits out games against the most atrocious teams, usually at home. Usually when that particular team also happens to be playing the 545th game of a 546 game road trip. A full 82 games of this squad without LeBron, and at least one of those games would yield the first shutout in NBA history. The Cavs’ PR flacks, being the marketing geniuses they are, would fire Moondog and cleverly replace him with Nolan Ryan.
Seriously, Josh, I’m all for rosey outlooks on life, but jeez, comparing those Bulls to these Cavs is WAY beyond comprehension. When it comes to perception of the home team, you’re starting to make Terry Pluto look like one of those crazy rabid man-eating pit bulls at Bad Newz Kennels.
Be reasonable. The Cavs aren’t atrocious without LeBron. There was a stretch where LeBron was in a horrible slump (for him) and Sasha filled in nicely (before the All-Star break). True, they are no where near as good without him, but it was a defensive team effort all throughout the playoffs. The Cavs have quality players. Drew Gooden is a good player, Varajeo and Z are good players, and Boobie and Pavlovic are turning out to be a good players. The Bulls went to the Eastern Conference Finals without Jordan – Scottie Pippen is one of the best players to play in the NBA – he’s a real jerk as far as I can tell but he was athletic, played great defense, could shoot and drive, and was an incredible passer for his position. He MADE Jordan better.
didnt the bulls make the playoffs the year jordan retired/sat out
quote from Alan tucker: “…I’m all for rosey outlooks on life…” Too too funny. If you’re an optimist, I can only imagine how dire the pessimists are. Actually they must have all committed suicide when faced with the prospect of having to get up the next day. Where’s the Genius by the way? And Josh, love reading your stuff.
Scottie Pippen was a “slightly more athletic Drew Gooden.” That sentence alone earned that post a permanent spot in the Naismith Posting While On Acid Hall of Fame. That’s a classic. That was the equivalent of calling Tim Duncan “a slightly more athletic Keith Lee.”
Actually, I think I got their record wrong…if memory serves, they won 55 games in their first season without Jordan, not 47. I think it was 47 the second season. Can’t remember. Anyway, without James, I think it would take the Cavs at least three seasons to equal 55. People who disparage that guy’s talent on the court are complete idiots. With that said, too bad he’s such a whore off the court. It’s only a matter of time before he cashes a check and dances in his underwear with Kevin Bacon.
The Lakers had much less talent around Kobe this season than the Cavaliers had around LeBron. How in the world did Kobe get that atrocious team to the playoffs in the much more difficult western conference?
Also – Mike Brown did a 10-times better job of coaching than Phil Jackson did this season. At least Brown got the Cavs playing great defense, what in the heck did Mr. Jackson bring to the Lakers? He’s VERY fortunate to have had Kobe Bryant, or that Laker team wins negative-4 games.
Alert: Many stats forthcoming. If you dislike stats, skip this post.
If I understand the argument, Alan et. al. are arguing that the current Cavs — essentially those teams from the last two years — are a very poor team without LBJ. Alan labels them a bad lottery team, and Corporate Whore labels them a 30-win team. Alan furthers that the team has built its exceptional non-LBJ record the last two years (6-1) by piling on against patsies who were playing on the road and without rest.
There is some truth to what he says. These are the teams against which LeBron has sat in the last two years: Knicks, Boston (twice), Atlanta, Golden State Philadelphia, Sacramento. Of those seven teams, only one (Golden State this year) was against an above-.500 team. Collectively, those teams won .376 of their games, or 31 games over a full season.
The Cavs did also play more (4) of those seven games at home than on the road, although it was hardly a huge differential.
And Alan is right and wrong about the amount of rest those teams had: Two of those opponents had two days off, two had one day off, and three played on no rest. However, the Cavs were actually “less” rested than their opponents, having played the same three games on no rest while having no games with two or more days rest.
So, how many games should a “deep lottery” team have won against that competition? I tried to project this, figuring each team’s home or road record in the season in which they played the Cavs (without LBJ), and by calculating how an average team (.500) should have done against the same record.
The results? An average (41-41) team should have gone about 4.6-2.4 against that array of teams. As you know, the Cavs actually won six of seven, so they did better than an average team would have been expected to do. (Seven games is a very limited sample, so that could reasonably be attributed to luck.)
Remember, though, Alan and Corporate Whore aren’t suggesting this team — sans LBJ — is average. They are saying that it is well below average. It is reasonable to suggest that a Corporate Whore-quality team (30-52) would have won one less game than an average team (against these seven teams in the same locales), and a “deep lottery” team might have won a half-game less than that. It’s still a small sample, but chalking up 2.5 or three wins in a seven-game span to luck — while possible — isn’t likely.
A couple other points:
The Cavs didn’t just win those games this year, they crushed their opponents. In four LBJ-less games this year, the Cavs outscored their opponents by a total of 57 points. Their lone loss was by a deuce. In the two years with this approximate cast of players, Cleveland has outscored its opponents by an average of nearly 10 points a game. The point differentials suggest they should have won six-plus of those games. In short, the Cavs really weren’t lucky to win those six games.
Lastly, LBJ is a wonderful player, arguably the best in the league. Basketball-Reference.com’s method of calculating his value places his contribution at 10-11 wins over .500 over the course of the season. That’s huge — the most of any NBA player — but it isn’t the 20-30 wins that people on this board are attributing.
LOL…Josh calm down. I am betting, all your money, that if we were to ask NBA historians and people who know the game MUCH more than you or me, if Scottie Pippen is just a “slightly more athletic Drew Gooden”, they would disagree by about a 100% to 0% margin. Credibility for Josh’s opinions on player talent equals zero. But to top that off, you’re wrong about the Cavaliers record without James. 6-1 was the last two years, maybe? I believe it’s 9-3. Still pretty good, but anyone going with that as “proof” that the Cavaliers are a good team without James is fooling themselves. That record is over a span of 4 years, so that’s 3 games a year that the Cavaliers play without James. Let’s use last year as just one example. I think they were 3-1 without him. First, the opponent has gameplanned for James…surprise he doesn’t play, so a HUGE chunk of their gameplanning is out the window. Secondly and MUCH more importantly, the teams they beat? They sucked. Bottom line is this. If you REALLY think that the Cavaliers are a good team without James, you’re smoking some f’ed up shyt.
Scottie Pippen is just a more athletic Drew Gooden? LOL…This tells me that you never really saw Scottie Pippen play basketball.
Kevin Andress, nice post. To be honest, after I posted my 30-52 record comment, I thought it was too negative. Your breakdown is well done. I will admit, at times, I think too little of the “help”. My post was reactionary. A great catch of BasketballReference.com’s stat. I, unfortunately, can’t get there at work, but am very interested at seeing how they derive at that stat.
I don’t know…it’s all fun and games to talk about, but without James, this is the same quality roster as the Ilgauskas-led 17-65 team. I figure by game 35, there would be some much bad karma and dissension in the locker room, that Hughes and Jones would have a knife fight in the shower. I really don’t know how anybody can argue differently without giggling. And this despite the fact that Drew Gooden is Scottie Pippen with a Hitler mustache on the back of his cantaloupe.
I agree with the opinions of stephon marbury, lebron is easy to hate.
Lebron is soo amazing so I wish y’all would stop hatin on the brother on em like dat.
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marbury sux anyways
and everyone knows tht lbj is the best
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