i've read a lot of posts from people who are interested in bringing stephon marbury in.  personally i think no since he hasn't been a good player for 3 years and is on the downside of his career.  his stats have declined significantly.  however, i recently read a poster compare his recent struggles to those of baron in new orleans and imply that if we could turn baron's career back around, we could do the same with marbury (see SONNYG).

i disagree completely.  when we picked up baron he was 26--still very young and theoretically approaching his prime.  though baron had a reputation for being a menace on the court, so to speak, with coaches, he never had any trouble off the court.  plus to my knowledge i never saw baron struggle on the court as much as marbury.  as much as i hate to speculate about effort, it is hard not to.

as i did more research on their careers, it seems that baron's career has mirrored marbury's more than marbury's would have the potential to mirror baron's.  although i would rather take a chance on a young PG instead of marbury (can you say shaun livingston?), i will admit that this doesn't say anything about marbury's future.  i just did some research and found this theory very interesting so i thought i would share it with all of GSOM in a fanpost.


now, marbury is 31 (baron is still younger at 29) in fact thinking marbury can mirror barons revival at this point is looking at the situation at the opposite angle.  baron's career seems to mirror marbury's more than marbury's will mirror baron's.  in fact, baron's career seems to be marbury's career happening in a 2-3 year delay.  lets take a look (keep in mind that baron is YOUNGER):

1. marbury had many disputes with coaches early in his career--so did baron

2. marbury had minor injury problems and struggled to play full seasons with minnesota & new jersey--baron had more serious injury problems in new orleans

3. marbury had his best scoring season in his last season in an injury shortened season in new jersey--baron had his best scoring season in his last season in an injury shortened season in new orleans

4. marbury was traded to phoenix and had arguably the most overall personal and arguably team success of his career playing with an exciting team including shawn marion and amare stoudemire. he led his team to an exciting playoff berth and had a VERY good playoff series in his second to last year with the team--baron was traded to GS and had the most overall personal and arguably team success of his career playing with an exciting team including stephen jackson and monta ellis.  he led his team to an exciting playoff berth and had VERY good playoff series in his second to last year with the team

5. suns struggle initially the following season and marbury goes home to the NY knicks (for essentially nothing in return to the suns) and has 2 very successful years, then 3 disastrous ones (both personally and team-wise for various reasons) --warriors fail to make the playoffs the following year and baron goes home to the LA clippers (for technically nothing in return to the warriors--cap space excluded).

if this logic continues, in his first 2 years in LA and lead the clippers to the playoffs next year and get swept in the first round.  baron will work even harder the following year to get them back again--but fail.  by year 3, he will feud with mike dunleavy in a very unsuccessful season and mike dunleavy will be fired.  elgin baylor isiah thomas will run the clippers into the ground and baron will lose concentration and suffer with declining personal statistics and play a very low number of games.  by year 5 baron will be labeled a former star, current team cancer with a huge contract and some posters on some blog somewhere will be advocating bringing a 34 year old baron davis to their team after a large buyout to backup and tutor their young combo guard into becoming a quality pg.

also ironically the nets became good after marbury left--picking up jason kidd.  phoenix reloaded, got nash and became really good after marbury left.  new orleans rebuilt and eventually got really good after baron left (cp3, chandler, west, peja).  the teams all did it in different ways: can the warriors continue this pattern?

basically, by my theory (of baron = marbury) it looks like the warriors were wise to not sign baron to a long term (more than 2 year) contract.  again this could just be coincidential correlation and is just a theory but i find it very interesting.

any thoughts?