Former Knicks star Stephon Marbury will be featured on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on Tuesday and word has already gotten out that among the topics of discussions will be the Coney Island native’s recollection of his last days in the NBA and the depression and suicidal thoughts that came along with it. Today, though, Starbury is enjoying a very successful career in the Chinese Basketball Association, which includes having won two championships, a statue dedicated to him outside of the Beijing Ducks’ arena in 2012, and most recently having even starred in a musical play about his own life.
More from our friends at HBO Sports:
REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL, TV’s most honored sports journalism series, returns with an all-new season of enterprising features and reporting when the show’s 214th edition debuts on TUESDAY, JAN. 20 (10:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO.
Reinventing His Game. In 2009, after prolonged turmoil with the New York Knicks, Stephon Marbury turned down a one-year contract offer from the Boston Celtics and walked away from the NBA. Already dealing with deep depression over the loss of his father in 2007 and the failure of his Starbury brand of affordable basketball sneakers, the 13-year veteran struggled to cope away from the hardwood.
But in 2010, Marbury returned to the game he loved with the Chinese Basketball Association’s Shanxi Zhongyu Brave Dragons and had an impressive season, averaging 23 points and nine assists. Now, after five seasons in the CBA, Marbury, 37, is one of the league’s biggest stars. Since 2011, he has been a member of the Beijing Ducks, leading them to the playoffs each year, and capturing championships in 2012 and 2014, something the Coney Island native never experienced in the NBA. More recently, his Starbury brand has been reenergized by his success in China. REAL SPORTS correspondent Carl Quintanilla heads to Beijing, where Marbury tells him he has no plans to come back to the U.S.
Producer: Naimah Jabali-Nash
