http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-b...039582.html;_ylt=At2QmEcyDUWaHSjCBdGYYRC8vLYF Check out the link to see the photos. They're great! This dude clearly loves the game, loves fans and can't get enough PT. Props to Marbury: Stephon Marbury is getting a bronze statue, thanks to 1 million Chinese hoops fans Stephon Marbury hoists the Chinese Basketball Association championship. (S.I. China/Getty Images)About two weeks ago, Stephon Marbury became a champion for the first time since high school. The Beijing-by-way-of-Brooklyn point guard led his Beijing Ducks to a 4-1 series win over defending Chinese Basketball Association champion Guangdong Hongyuan, bringing the Ducks their first-ever CBA championship. The win capped an emotional road to a title for Marbury, who turned his career and life around by going to China after the 2009 NBA season, thriving in the CBA game to the tune of three straight All-Star appearances and, now, a title. While Marbury put up MVP-caliber numbers in the CBA finals — he averaged 33.4 points, 6.2 assists and four rebounds a night in the five-game series and poured in 41 points to seal the deciding Game 5 — he couldn't officially be named the series' most valuable player, thanks to a CBA rule stipulating that no foreign-born player can win the CBA's regular-season or postseason MVP awards. Eager to recognize Marbury's championship-winning performance, though, fans at the Chinese basketball website hoopchina.com started an online campaign aimed at building a statue of the former Minnesota Timberwolves, New Jersey Nets, Phoenix Suns, New York Knicks and Boston Celtics point guard. Within hours, more than 200,000 fans had thrown their support behind the project; within a week, more than 1 million had voted in favor of pushing the statue into production. As of the latest update, dated April 10, the statue — which captures the moment Marbury lifted the CBA championship trophy, shown above — has been modeled in clay, "transported to the Jiangxi Province [and is] ready to start after the bronze work," according to a translation of a post from the HoopChina forums. Hit the jump for some shots of the model, thanks to HoopChina, with a hat-tip to Sean Sweeney at Dime. First, a (just about) full-size look: The clay model of the Stephon Marbury statue built by Chinese basketball fans. (Via hoopchina.com/hupu.com) And now, a close-up of Steph's face: A closer look at the face of the model for the Stephon Marbury statue. (Via hoopchina.com/hupu.com) Not a bad likeness, right? According to the HoopChina poster who shared the photos, the whole process will take about 24 days to complete, so the earliest we'd see the full-on armored version of Steph's statue would probably be mid-May, smack in the middle of the NBA playoffs. Marbury took to both Twitter and, according to Dime, Sina Weibo (a popular Chinese microblogging/social media service) to thank fans for the gesture, the honor and the love. All of this, obviously, is pretty stunning. Three years ago, a huge share of the NBA-watching-and-commenting world viewed Stephon Marbury as at best irrelevant, at worst dangerous and generally ridiculous. Now, in a foreign land, he's defeated all comers, risen to the top of the world and become an honest-to-goodness folk hero. Stephon Marbury is basically living out "Planet Hulk" right now. What an amazing turn of events.
This is Basketball drama that you get in the movies. The Basic plot: Disgraced basketball player leaves the league, plays in a minor league to earn some quick cash. Soon he realizes that he loves and misses the basketball game, and decides to try his best to help his team win. They reach the finals, where they face up against the multiple time defending champions, who also just recently signed a high caliber player in Brooks (the antagonist/boss/that evil karate guy from karate kid). Disgraced basketball player takes his team to the promise land, wins championship, cries. The antagonist (Brooks) returns to his old league where his defeat is heard around the world.
That's a great story, and I'm glad Marbury has found success and love in China. It reminds me of The Flying Nun (post nun days), Sally Field, babbling at the Oscars, "...I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!" And they like Marbury enough to cast him in bronze.
Antoine Walker should go to China and play against Marbury's team. His statue could look like a chocolate Stay Puft Marshmellow man.
Why is it that it look like only Starbury and the cheerleaders are happy in this pic? Everyone else looks like he stole their trophy. Spoiler Also if you look into those eyes, it looks like someone is in there screaming for help. Spoiler
It seems foolish for teams like the Bobcats or the Hornets to not take a risk on guys like Marbury or Iverson. Those teams are just awful; why not help the rest of the NBA by actually getting fans in the stadium?
Love it. I love marbury and I love China. Props to him for getting out of the crazy USA and finding himself.
7'9'' Sun Mingming looks unhappy because he played 0 minutes in the entire playoffs. Actually, for practicing with the team for an entire year, he only played in 1 game the entire season, which is the last game of the regular season.
