Stephon Marbury :: essays research papers

	Stephon Marbury is a basketball phenomenon. Mr. Marbury has been known by the basketball world at the young age of eleven. Many pressures and confrontations have encountered Mr. Marbury throught his entire basketball career. These began when he was a young child and they still accompany him. 	Many people from Brooklyn, New York, the city in which Stephon Marbury was born and raised, have known about his basketball skills for an extremely long time because "...he was dribbling on a court not long after he was dribbling on his bib"(Ryan, 56). Mr. Marbury described himself as mouthy and inconsiderate. He loved to "talk trash" to opposing team's players and even their coaches. In 1988 Hoop Scoop, a recruiting newsletter, anointed him the bext sixth-grader in the nation...Up to that point, Marbury says, "I wasn't a very nice kid. I thought I was it. It was y'all supposed to talk to me, I'm not supposed to talk to y'all. i'd just come out on the court, just talk junk, with this walk and this look." In CYO ball he woofed at opposing coaches: I'm just killing your guards. Get someone out here who can stop me(Wolff, 62). 	By the time that Mr. Marbury was a Sophomore in high school at Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, he had changed his act. He learned to treat everybody with respect and to be a professional person. He had also tattooed a panther onto his right arm. He said: "A panther is quick and smart and always alert to everything. He's sitting on top of a mountain...That's where I want to see myself" (Wolff, 62). 	Mr. Marbury had great pressures exerted on him to put up big numbers. He was frustrated that very few people could comprehend how much pressure was exerted on him to do this. Mr. Marbury even had international recognition by making the covers of magazines in France and Germany. A news show on the American Broadcasting Company, "Nightline", profiled him. Mr. Marbury says: It's real hard for people to understand if they don't come from New York, I was scrutinized for every little thing. In high school, I was like what Michael Jordan is to the NBA. I had to be on top of my game every day. Everybody was gunning for me(Ryan, 54). 	Mr. Marbury met another high school basketball phenomenon from South Carolina, Kevin Garnett. They both currently play on the Minnesota Timberwolves.