D’Antoni “can’t wait” to work with Marbury

NEW YORK CITY, NY — During the press conference introducing him as the new head coach of the New York Knicks, Mike D’Antoni told reporters, “I can’t wait to work with Stephon Marbury,” the embattled point guard who D’Antoni helped ship from Phoenix to New York in 2004.

In a recent SSNN exclusive, D’Antoni explained his comments about the troublesome Marbury, who has been a major disappointment as a Knick both on and off the court.

“I meant that I couldn’t wait to work with Marbury on a trade,” D’Antoni said. “I mean, come on – the guy’s a loser. Plus, he makes those cheap-ass shoes. There’s a reason I traded him before.”

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D’Antoni, who averaged 58 wins a season over four years in Phoenix, recently signed a four-year, $24 million deal to coach the Knicks. Marbury, who averaged 13.9 points and 4.7 assists in 24 games this season, will make $21.9 million in 2008-09 alone.

Those numbers and the pair’s history have rumors of a Marbury trade already flying. One rumor has Marbury going back to Phoenix for a packaged deal involving either Boris Diaw or Leandro Barbosa, but D’Antoni put that particular rumor to rest. “I’ll trade Stephon for damn near anybody or anything. Sure, it would be great to get Boris or Leo, but really I’m just looking for somewhere to unload Steph. Not that he won’t be fantastic wherever he ends up.”

Marbury is apparently similarly uninterested in staying around to play for D’Antoni, and also showed interest in working on a trade, though not before bashing his new/old coach.

“Has he ever done anything? Guy can’t even get past San Antonio,” Marbury snapped. “Just because I’m the point guard of a team that won 23 games last season, people try to call me a locker room problem, or a bad point guard. I’m not responsible for this mess. You can write that down, ‘I am not responsible’.”

Marbury went on to say that D’Antoni’s mustache looks “creepy,” and his offensive schemes are “crap-buckets.” Still, the Georgia Tech product wasn’t above recycling his apparent archenemy’s mediocre one-liners.

“Sure I want to work with him – on a trade,” Marbury quipped, if directly quoting a hated rival can be considered quipping. “I can make that joke too. What kind of name is D’Antoni, anyway? What a joke.”

Unperturbed by arguably his most talented player’s hatred for him, D’Antoni stressed he is open “to absolutely any and all” offers for Marbury. “I’d rather have that stupid dunking gorilla on my team, or even Shaq. I can’t wait to ship him out of here.”