Stephon Marbury is being bantered about as a candidate for employment as a back-up point guard for the Boston Celtics (see ESPN.com). Today, Marc Stein of ESPN looked at all the angles from the Celtics, Knicks and Marbury’s viewpoints in the Marbury FAQ in the Daily Dime. CSL Blog’s own Jon Duke also went into the dichotomy of the situation in We Want Steph Not Staph.

It is really hard to sit on the fence on this one, as you like to have principles as a basketball fan, and you want to like sportsmanship in your players. In your heart you know that you want your team to win the right way. So when it comes to this Marbury acquisition talk, I’m being clear, I’d rather stick a knitting needle in my eye than have an egomaniac like Marbury in the locker room. 

I want the US to win gold in Beijing as much as the next guy (unless it’s Osama Bin Laden. I bet he’s rooting against us), but there’s one other goal that I believe deserves Coach K’s attention. Getting someone to score more than 31 points in one of the next two games. The reason? This Guy. With his 31 points in a game against Spain back in Athens, Stephon Marbury currently holds the record for Most Points in a Game in Team USA Olympic history. This needs to change.

Jerry Reinsdorf—who, by the way, has definitely jumped into the top five of people who make me feel really uncomfortable when i see them in HD—has absolutely killed himself these last four years to restore Team USA to glory, and as of now, things are looking pretty good—although obviously there’s still serious work to be done. But even if they win the gold, the transformation won’t be complete until Starbury’s name is erased from the books. He represents everything that went so wrong with the Dream Team. Having is name there is just as bad as having an anoose like Barry Bonds hold the home run record. It’s like if OJ had the NFL rushing record, Ugueth Urbina had the MLB save record or Jayson Williams held the NBA rebounding crown. It’s just a black cloud and it needs to be pushed out.