On Tuesday, the New York Knicks and their former star point guard finally ended their standoff and agreed to a buyout of Stephon Marbury's contract. Since training camp, the Knicks have payed Marbury, who also answers to the nickname "Starbury", approximately $20MM this season. In return for this phat paycheck, Starbury has played a total of zero minutes this season.
This happened to the Knicks once before. Back when the team managed to make it to the NBA Finals despite barely sneaking into the playoffs, they locked shooting guard Allan Houston up with a mega deal that payed him more than $20MM annually. He subsequently developed an arthritic condition in his knee and basically sat out the last three years of his contract. Thanks to the guaranteed contracts negotiated in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, Houston received every penny.
Starbury, however, is perfectly healthy. (From a physical standpoint. Mentally, there are questions.) During the preseason, the team's new coach, Mike D'Antoni, decided to go with veteran back up Chris Duhon as his starter at the point and exiled Marbury to the end of the bench. That proved to be a problem, because the ego of Stephon Marbury was only inflamed by the DNP-Coach's Decision. Before the first month of the 2008/2009 season had completed, Marbury was banished from doing anything other than cashing his paycheck by the team to avoid the distraction he was causing.
Yet he still managed to be a distraction. When the Knicks visited the Lakers, Starbury bought a floor seat to the game and appeared to cheer for L.A. He still made bigger headlines in the Big Apple than the surprisingly good Knicks team.
Now, you may be asking: What does any of this have to do with the Thunder?