What a comedown for Marbury - $25,000 a month in China

Geez, what a comedown. And to think he could have made $1.5 - $2 mil as our backup point guard and had a chance at getting his first ring:


By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports 22 minutes ago

After earning nearly $22 million in the NBA last season, Stephon Marbury has taken a substantial pay cut to play in the Chinese Basketball Association: $25,000 per a month, a source familiar with the deal told Yahoo! Sports.

Before agreeing to the deal with Shanxi Zhongyu, Marbury had turned down a few European overtures during the summer, a source said, including bids by two Greek teams. Maccabi Tel-Aviv had interest, but never made a formal offer. The Boston Celtics were willing to bring Marbury back in the spring, but Marbury believed offers of $8 million to $10 million annually would eventually come over the summer.

Top teams in Europe had the same fears the NBA did: After Marbury spent the summer live-streaming his bizarre behavior on the Internet, teams feared he had lost his mind. Nevertheless, most believe Marbury’s talents haven’t entirely eroded after 13 seasons.

Shanxi has lost 10 of 13 games and sits in 12th place in the 17-team CBA. The team insisted the 32-year-old Marbury was willing to play the rest of the season for a chance to market his Starbury shoe and clothing apparel line.

“Marbury’s salary is not an astronomical figure because by coming here he also hopes to open up the Chinese market and sell his shoes,” Shanxi executive Wang Xingjiang said.

Marbury is just a nutcase in general.

BUT I do not think the idea of doing what he is doing would be completely wrong if done right/by the right person.

China is a big market and you can probably get some crazy endorsement deals.

Marbury is no dummy.

The guy actually appears to be a shrewd businessman, despite our lasting memory of YouTube blow-ups this past summer.

Swede hit on part of it in his post above; forget the basketball contract (he doesn't need the small change) it's the Chinese market for anything from the western world that's appealing. Marbury has that line of shoes designed to undercut the pricing Nike and others have that requires $150 plus for a pair of basketball shoes. How about marketing those to the nation with the worlds biggest population, growing middle class affluence and soon to be biggest economy? With the U.S. Dollar rising slightly, but still trading fairly low to the China Yuan Renminbi, he has economics on his side. The Chinese could snap up those Starbury court shoes by the boatload.

I've seen a little of what Marbury has going for him when he's made visits here to our area. He's setting up youth centers stressing education with a healthy dose of citizenship and athletics. He's supplying a chunk of the startup costs, often better than half, and taking nothing in return except perhaps the cut in his future estate tax liability. If I recall correctly he's got centers in the works in some six cities.

Too bad he couldn't keep his head when it came to playing basketball in the NBA as well.

Regards

Hope he's happier selling sneakers (if that's his motive) than restoring his image and possibly getting his first ring.

Steve
You should know Marbury has always been about Marbury,not winning,he knew we are loads over the cap with a roster that didn't need 20 points a game from him,instead of being grateful to be on a real championship team he acts like a nutjob and complains theres no money for him when how many games did he show up for us?Let him sell his damn shoes.

cow