Marburyisms, Day 1: "I’m not caught up in winning no ring"

Today is Knicks Media day, which is getting buried in the, um, media because the Mets just finished wasting my summer and the Giants won last night, but today is officially the first day of the season!

Forget that our coach is still in New York fighting a bogus trumped up Sexual Harassment case, instead of with the team at camp (Not that I'm defending these scumbags, but come on...this was not 10 million dollars of harassment, just an awful place to work). Forget that NBA 2k8 for XBbox and PS3 is coming out this week, rating the Knicks a 62 out of 100 (WORST in the league). Forget that we're now have 20 guys signed to fill a 12 man bench. At least the team is in camp, ready to play and win it all! Here's what our highest paid player had to say to the press today (via):

“I’m not caught up in winning no ring,” Marbury said. “I want to win a championship just as a basketball player, for something that I do. Basketball is not my life. Like, if I win a championship, great. If I don’t, life is going to continue to go on. Basketball is only a short portion of your life. After basketball you’ve got to live the next 50, 60 years.”

Ok, that was the exact photonegative of what you want your star player to say the first day of camp. Like the complete opposite! Marbury and Tom Glavine should open a forum for beleaguered New York sports fans where they just talk about all the awful things in the world that are more important than the team they are paid 8 figures to perform for. This is my official least favorite athlete excuse of the year. If you really feel this way fellas, just move to Calcutta and stop taking my stupid teams' money.

Welcome to Section 402

This will be a season long diary of the 2007-2008 New York Knicks, from two season ticket holders, sitting in Section 402 at Madison Square Garden.

This just has the feel of one of those "Season on the Brink" years, you know? The kind of thing that just needs to be documented. I mean...

• We've got this absolutely unbelievable Sexual Harassment suit, which exposed the organization as being run by the Three Six Mafia.


• The team is owned by a guy who looks like someone you wouldn't want to sit at a blackjack table with.


• Our 'star' point guard has shown multiple times this offseason that he's either completely lost his mind or completely given up on functioning in actual society.


• We've got 2 potential All-Star big men, but one of which has a penchant for getting in embarrassing trouble (like spending bereavement leave at strip clubs and punching out teammates), and the other is only one semi-breakout season removed from a constant speculation that he could drop dead at any moment from a malfunctioning heart. Whee!


• There there are young bright spots David Lee and Renaldo Balkman, who are gonna be stuck on the bench all season, and even tho their trade value is at an absolute peak, fans and management would rather nuzzle in the fact that they're ours, rather than move them to get someone who could actually help us win.


• There's the Q's and Crawfords and Jefferies' and James'...all the guys who we've been waiting and waiting their entire careers to finally have that healthy/worthwhile breakout season, tho have never actually proven anything.
  
• Oh, and we have 17 guys signed to play this season, when you can only dress 12 and keep 15.

Yet, despite all this, this is a team that should win at least 45 games and get to the playoffs! I'm serious. The East is still pitiful, there is no way any team can effectively guard Curry and Randolph at the same time, and for all of Isiah Thomas' faults, he seems to genuinely have the unconditional support of the players, which means a whole lot more than X's and O's in this league. So we will see. At best, this turns out to be a pretty good team. At worst, it'll be a spectacular flameout worth watching in person.

As for introductions/disclosures, my name is Jeff Baum, and I run the blog Central Village and contribute Music and Nightlife nuggets for Gothamist. For a few months this year, I worked part-time as a freelance music blogger for Madison Square Garden, tho no longer have any association with them and hold no grudges (was never called a 'Ho', forrexample.) I am a lifetime Knicks, Mets and Giants fan. I was also a Rangers fan in 1994, and am attempting to try and get that going again this year (mainly through NHL 08 for Xbox 360.) I also have a passing interest in NASCAR, College Basketball, Golf and Tennis, in that order. This site will we co-written by Joey Arak, who I am splitting the pair of tickets with. He may chime in shortly...