Former NBA star Stephon Marbury is not a fan of NBA analysts that didn’t set foot on an NBA court to at least play one minute. According to the controversial player, he can’t take seriously somebody that never played at that level and wants to explain the little details of the game. Back in August, the former New York Knicks point guard went on a lengthy rant about this, especially talking about ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith and his remarks on Marbury.
During that time, Smith also ranted about Marbury, explaining that he didn’t like the personality of the 43-year-old.
“I like the man [Marbury], I don’t like the fact that he’s hard-headed.”
“I don’t like the fact that he always thinks that he’s right and he doesn’t listen,” Smith said.
As to that, Marbury issued a big response, while talking with Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson at the end of August (41:19 minute).
“I seen him [Stephen A.] one time and when I seen him he looked like he saw a ghost,” Marbury said.
“I think Stephen A. Smith, he does what he’s doing for TV. That’s it. That’s the best way to paraphrase what is actually happening, what’s going on. Stephen A. Smith, he’s never played any professional sport and I think when you have these guys like him and Shannon Sharpe; when you have a football player talking about basketball, I think you’re doing it an injustice towards people’s ears and understanding about what’s actually happening on the court.” Marbury explained.
He then went on to say what opinions people should be listening to instead of Smith or any other person who didn’t play in the NBA.
“When you listen to guys like Chris Webber and Kenny Smith, even Charles Barkley, when you’re listening to these guys when they’re talking about basketball it’s okay to have an observation about what it is that you see. But when you’re looking for information, for you to have this understanding about the game being played, I think when you hear these guys you can take heed to what they are saying because you know that they are representing the game from a perspective of something on the court and them understanding what’s actually happening in real-time when the game is going on.”
Stephon then continued saying that he didn’t care about Stephen A. playing in college, he was talking about a different level, which he didn’t reach. He used a big metaphor to explain why all that was wrong.
“I don’t need to know about that because when you start doing that, you start confusing my brain,” he said.
“You start making me think that you’ve done something at a level and now you didn’t reach that level and then now you’re speaking about another level. When you play in the NBA, that’s a different space. Right? After ten, it’s eleven and that’s it. It’s 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and then after that you’re going into eleven. Right? Once you start going into different spaces; you know you can start talking about what it is you feel and what you think.” Marbury continued.
“But when you start talking about the game, where now you’re trying to break it down, for people to have an understanding, I got a problem with that because you can’t break the game down for me if you never played at this level before. You can speak and you can talk about it and you can have your views of what you think. But when you start talking about it as if you are a player and you’ve never played, you’re never going to understand it. If you’ve never had sex before and you’re a virgin, you can’t tell me how it is to bust a nut! Let’s keep it 100. I think this way right here, it makes it plain and simple. If you never bust a nut before, you can’t tell somebody how it feels. Period.”
He was firm in his belief and nobody could change his mind. Sports analysts are important in today’s game and even though most of them didn’t play in the NBA. They have studied the game, have talked with players, coaches to try to understand the things happening on the court. It’s unfair to say that only a bunch of people should be talking about a certain matter when others have better and more accurate takes on that.
