Last summer, Stephon Marbury vowed hewould play in Italy after his Knick contract expired after 2009.
At the time, many scoffed at the farfetched notion. But Marbury’s desires have now become the trend, with nine NBA players signing with European or Israeli clubs since July 1’s free agency.
While Marbury plans to play in the NBA this season – with the Knicks or another club if released – he still has plans of an Italian career.
In fact, Marbury told The Post he will play as soon as next season, specifically aiming to join Milan.
He’ll have connections. Mike D’Antoni coached Milan in the 1990’s and first-rounder Danilo Gallinari played for Milan the past two seasons.
“People just didn’t understand and didn’t know (last summer),” said Marbury, who will be in Coney Island Sunday when his summer kids basketball league holds its Finals at Surfside Gardens. “When I made comments about playing overseas people took it out of perspective, thought I was talking about leaving while still playing for the Knicks. It was turned into something negative about going to Italy. Now it seems it’s OK.
“Why wouldn’t you want to play basketball, still make money and live in a place that’s beautiful,” Marbury added. “Milan is definitely where I want to play basketball at. That’s where I fell in love with Italy.”
Nobody knows for sure where Marbury will play in 2008-2009. In a move that doesn’t make basketball sense, considering the Knicks’ hole at point guard last season when Marbury played just 24 games, Donnie Walsh is considering moving on without him. Walsh believes he boosted the backcourt after signing free-agent guards Chris Duhon and Anthony Roberson in the summer.
However, Walsh said during a seminar with season-ticket holders this week, according to a team source, that Marbury has a “clean slate” and he’ll see how he looks at training camp, which begins in six weeks in Saratoga.
But after unloading Renaldo Balkman two weeks ago, Walsh doesn’t have to make a roster move, after getting down to the maximum 15 players.
Marbury admitted the limbo status is “a weird situation for me” but not troubling. “If I come in prepared and capable of playing, everything will take care of itself,” Marbury said.
“I’m fine, I don’t look at it as an uneasy situation,” he added. “There’s no place but America where you can make 20 million dollars for free. I can’t get mad if they want to go in a different direction and want to pay me. All I can do is say is thank you and appreciate it and understand it’s a business and I’ll keep moving. It’s nothing personal. I love New York and that’s the team I want to play for, but there are other teams out there.”