The wait is over for Marbury

Stephon Marbury's months long wait in NBA purgatory ended tonight. After finally gaining his basketball freedom from his hometown Knicks earlier this week, Marbury made his debut for his new team, the defending champion Boston Celtics. In a 104-99 victory, Marbury made his presence felt by contributing 8 points on 4 for 6 shooting in 13 minutes off the Celtic bench.

That's the journalistic lede, if you will. The Dragnet, just the facts, maam. The who, what, when, where, not even the why.

But it doesn't come close to doing the story justice. Dive in, delve into the details and back stories and you'll see that the full story is much more layered and way more complicated.

Marbury himself is a tough one to pinpoint. A unmistakable talent, Steph was a much heralded phenom from a rough neighborhood that inspired biographies and documentaries about him while he was still in high school. He has put up great numbers in the NBA but has bounced around and each time the team he leaves seems to improve after his departure.

In 2004, Marbury ended up with his hometown Knicks with hopes of redemption. Things soured quickly as the Knicks of the Isiah era became a laughingstock with Marbury front and center. The new regime came along in 2008 and DAntoni realized that he'd rather wipe the slate clean than deal with Marbury. Steph ended up sitting out more than half of 2009 season while collecting one of the 5 biggest salaries in the NBA.

So that's the version of the story that created the public perception: Marbury's a bad guy. A loser. A chemistry killer. Talent wasted. Overpaid.

And why not? He left New Jersey and Phoenix and their teams improved the next year. He was notoriously involved in Isiah's sexual harassment case. The Knicks were willing to pay him $20 million this year to not play.

Now I'm stuck trying to make sense of things after my favorite squad the Celtics signed Marbury for the remainder of the season. On one hand, it's Marbury. On the other, the Celtics are trying to defend their championship and they acquired a player who fills some of their most glaring needs.

I guess I go with Pizzle's theory of sports relativity which says that, basically, it's all situational. Because winning is the ultimate measure of success, players often get unfairly labeled based on being stuck in bad situations. In Steph's case, the theory would say he's been unfairly labeled as a bum when in reality he was just in bad situations. This theory works perfectly for my current situation:

Marbury to the Celtics is an ideal fit, a perfect situation. This Celtics team needs another guard to give 20 solid minutes of the bench. Someone who can take the ballhandling duties from Eddie House and provide some offense, while being able to handle some of the bigger guards on D. Marbury is the perfect fit. Marbury gets a chance to clean up his reputation by helping a team defend a championship. On paper, it's a win, win.

The first game has me believing the hype. Stay tuned...