Apparently oblivious to the modern NBA, Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor has expressed an interest in bringing Stephon Marbury back to the team that originally drafted him. Taylor was then viloently slapped by his secretary who shouted, "Snap out if it, man!"
Taylor told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune on Wednesday that his team is interested in acquiring Stephon Marbury, whom Minnesota drafted 10 years ago and traded to the Nets in 1999. However, Taylor admitted that Marbury's contract - he'll earn $60 million over the next three seasons - is a major stumbling block.
"Yeah, it isn't that we couldn't use somebody like that. We certainly could with his experience, and we know him," Taylor told the newspaper. "It's that he was signed at a salary that's going to cause us problems. So it would be difficult, it would have to be one of those things where New York would have to say that they really want to get rid of the player and could help us in some financial way to do it. We wouldn't know until this summer if that would even be a possibility."
It's amazing, and sad, how much of an the opportunity Marbury passed up when he whined his way out of Minnesota after the Timberwolves drafted him. With him and Kevin Garnett both young and coming up at the time, they had every chance to be one of the premier inside-outside tandems in the league. For a long time. Nobody has ever questioned Marbury's ability, and had he not been so set on not sharing the spotlight and returning to the New York area (which he eventually whined hisway out of for, of all places, Phoenix), it's easy to think that the Timberwolves could have had been special for a long time. Granted, one must make allowances for the fact that Kevin McHale is a horrible GM, but still. Point is, Marbury passed up a gift situation with Garnett to become liitle more than a journeyman notorious for making teams worse.
So the thought of him going back to his original destination just as Garnett seems set on getting out makes me shake with laughter.
