Ex-All-Star Marbury: ‘Wanted to die’ in 2009
ESPN.com news services
Former NBA All-Star Stephon Marbury said the combination of his struggling basketball career, failing “Starbury” sneaker company and death of his father in 2007 led to a downward spiral that resulted in suicidal thoughts in 2009.
“I wanted to die,” Marbury said in an interview on HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” that will air Tuesday night. “I wanted to kill myself some days. I did. … It wasn’t about basketball. It started to become about me. Because I was that depressed and I was that sick.”
Marbury, 37, last played in the NBA in 2009 with the Boston Celtics, but came under fire during his stint with the New York Knicks from 2004 to ’09 after reported feuds with coaches Larry Brown and Isiah Thomas.
As Marbury’s on-court production with the Knicks dipped, so too did the earnings of his sneaker company.
“When everything went on with the Knicks, and, you know, my father passed on, the [Starbury] brand was — it was basically losing life slowly,” Marbury told “Real Sports.” “And I was watching it. And I think that was hurting me more than seeing my basketball career going in the direction that it was going. … I was trapped in my thoughts. I was trapped in how I felt about how I felt I was treated. I was trapped with decisions that I made.”
Marbury also played for the Minnesota Timberwolves, Phoenix Suns and New Jersey Nets over a 13-year NBA career.
He joined the Chinese Basketball Association in 2010 and currently plays for the Beijing Ducks, a team he helped lead to a league title.
Marbury said he’s appreciated his time abroad.
“To be told that you’re a loser, that you can’t win, and that you can’t do this, and you can’t do that,” Marbury told “Real Sports.” “Then to come some place without speaking the language with the cultural barriers, to be able to accomplish that — that goal was, is beyond anything. … I left one place where they was basically hating me. And I come to another place where they love me? I’m like, ‘Why would I want to go back to a place where they hate me?’ I mean, that makes no sense to me.”
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