As Stephon Marbury held a lockerroom debate with a reporter about the logic of accepting less money than is owed on his contract, several of his present-day Knick teammates rolled their eyes.

"If I owed you $100 and I said I'm going to give you $80, what would you say?" Marbury asked the reporter.

One Knick gestured with his thumb, evidently tossing Marbury out of the ballgame.

The Knicks are reportedly willing to pay Marbury the lion's share of what remains on his contract. The team would get a modest discount equal to the amount that Marbury earns from another team, plus the dollar-for-dollar luxury tax savings; Marbury would take in the same total salary, while having the chance to play this season.

Mike D'Antoni also raised this type of arrangement with Marbury but the suggestion was not well received.

"They owe me that money! I earned that money!" Marbury told the coach.

"That's why you can't have that guy running your team," a person with knowledge of the Knicks' thinking told Ken Berger of Newsday. "Because he runs it for himself."

Said Berger's source, "The decision is easy because [Marbury] is the one making it. But at this point, it has to be where he sees the daylight and understands, 'You know what? I fought the law, and the law won.'"

Via Newsday

New York Knicks

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