D’Antoni calls Obama to thank him for Marbury’s sudden change in attitude

NEW YORK, NY — It’s taken a few days, but Mike D’Antoni finally was able to get on the phone with President-elect Barack Obama. All he had to say was two words — “Thank you!”

“Look, I owe Barack Obama an enormous debt of gratitude,” D’Antoni said. “He took one of the biggest problems that I had with my team, and totally turned it around for me.”

The problem, D’Antoni said, was high-paid former superstar Stephon Marbury, with his astronomical salary and horrible attitude. However, starting last Tuesday, with the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, D’Antoni noticed something.

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“Stephon is really swept up in this whole Barack Obama thing,” D’Antoni said. “And so I started thinking, ‘How can I take advantage of this? Can we use this to solve some of our problems with Stephon?’ Then it hit me … ‘Yes, we can.’”

D’Antoni has started addressing Marbury only with rhetorical questions that he can answer with the catchy, three-word call-and-response phrase that Obama has made popular.

“As long as you ask Marbury a question that he can answer with ‘Yes, we can,’ he’ll totally answer that way,” D’Antoni said. “You just have to be careful about how you phrase things, but if you do it right, it works like a charm.”

D’Antoni presented an example.

“If you go up to Stephon and say, ‘Stephon, I want you to be inactive for tomorrow’s game, is that okay?,’ he’ll probably freak out and say something like, ‘Hell, no, that isn’t okay, I’m Stephon Mother-flipping Marbury, who the hell do you think you’re talking to?’” D’Antoni explained. “But if you go up to him and say, ‘Stephon, can we get you to sit out tomorrow’s game for the good of the team?,’ he’ll respond by saying, ‘Yes, we can.’”

D’Antoni said that the trick was worked wonderfully and that he’s used it on Marbury at least 47 times since last Tuesday, including asking Marbury if “we can get you to park your car on the street outside the practice facility instead of in the lot?” and if “we can request that you stop receiving a paycheck from the New York Knickerbockers basketball club?”

Marbury says he doesn’t mind saying yes to things, as long as he’s doing it with a sense of the community around him.

“Are you going to ask me if I’m lonely and sad?” Marbury said. “The answer is hell, no! But if you’re going to ask me if we can go home and cry for a couple of hours tonight, I’ll give you your answer right now, bro. Yes, we can.”