On the one-year anniversary of his father’s death from a heart attack at the Garden, Stephon Marbury – as his sneakers once read – was “All Alone.”
All alone from his Knicks teammates after being banished indefinitely from the team’s Westchester practice facility and told not to come to last night’s game vs. the Blazers or any of the others.
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With the Players Association reviewing whether Donnie Walsh’s actions were proper under the collective bargaining agreement, Marbury spent 90 minutes yesterday working out in the weight room at a White Plains gym, New York Sports Club.
He’s under the impression he can’t even go to the facility to work out when the team is not there.
“It’s terrible,” Marbury said of his impasse with the Knicks.
Marbury wants to be bought out, but the sides are $3 million apart. As The Post reported yesterday, Marbury withdrew the $1 million give-back on his contract.
That came after Walsh presented a $3 million discount on Marbury’s $21.9 million during Monday’s bust of a buyout meeting.
“That’s what you get when you try to pay for your freedom,” Marbury told The Post.
“You can’t pay for your freedom. Freedom has to come free. I’m not giving nothing. That’s for real.”
It would’ve been an impossible day anyway for Marbury, whose father, Donald, suffered a fatal heart attack during the Knicks-Phoenix game on Dec. 2, 2007, when Mike D’Antoni was still coaching the Suns.
Days later, hundreds of mourners packed into a Coney Island funeral home, including the entire Knicks squad and coaching staff. Marbury never recovered mentally last season and missed most of the next five weeks.
“My father is looking down on me,” Marbury wrote in an e-mail to The Post last night. “I know he is proud of the way that I’m trying to be a better man.
“I’m not perfect and I’m trying to be better than what I was yesterday. I want to say to all of the people who sent their condolences last year, thank you and God bless.
“You will always have a place in the Marburys’ heart.”
Marbury still is trying to stay in shape and did all sorts of exercises – dumbbell work, nautilus, ab hangers, knee thrusts – at the White Plains gym in his first day in exile.
It is an awkward time for Marbury, who is hoping the Players Association has the ban lifted. The union believes such discipline needs “just cause.”
Last night, Walsh claimed the ban was not an act of discipline.
“It’s more about amidst our conversations of buying out, that’s not part of what the team is doing,” Walsh said. “I didn’t regard it as discipline. I regarded it as the proper thing to do under the circumstances we were in.”
Walsh still sounded optimistic a buyout was possible soon despite Marbury pulling off his $1 million offer.
“You don’t go in any type of negotiation with a timetable,” Walsh said. “Obviously both sides would like to see it happen as fast as it could happen.”
Walsh said talks will continue but sounded like he didn’t want to see Marbury’s face around.
“I’m sure we’ll be talking,” Walsh said. “Everybody’s got a telephone. Actually that’s probably the better way to do it.”
With all their injuries, the depleted Knicks need the roster spot to sign a guard. Their only healthy guard was Anthony Roberson entering last night’s game.
Cuttino Mobley may not ever play for the Knicks. He was in Los Angeles yesterday for heart tests with his career in jeopardy, and more tests will follow.
Asked if Mobley will play this season, Walsh said, “I am not going to make any announcement. Legally, I wouldn’t make the announcement.”
And he admitted he can use the roster spot.
“It’s always nice to have another player,” Walsh said.