It's All Greek To Me

Well it appears Stephon Marbury may have finally found a place to rest his weary (and by weary, I, of course, mean crazy) head. And that place is Greece.

Yeah, as in that dope country on the Mediterranean coast. Who knew all you had to do to get shipped off to that place was act insane enough to be committed and make a bunch of unreasonable demands?

That’s right. It turns out that the Greek team Olympiacos has recently lost Josh Childress for up to two months to a sports hernia, and they’re clamoring for some new talent. Apparently, they have reached out to the Knicks to discuss what it would take to have Marbury released from his contract.

As you might imagine, Greek basketball franchises are not often the brokers of buyouts between NBA teams and their players, but this wouldn't be the first time. In 2007, Olympiacos rival, Panathinakos, reportedly paid the Spurs for the release of one of their players.

(Similar reports have also been made—but cannot be verified—about Greek team Bananafanafofinakos.)

Now, in theory, this could pan out to be a great option for everyone. Olympiacos finds someone to fill their hole, the Knicks get rid of a little dead weight, Marbury gets a shot—not only to actually play—but in a country where people can’t understand what he’s saying well enough to register how crazy he is. Everybody wins, right? Right.

Amazing. Done. I’m pumped. Let’s make it happen.

But there’s one little problem, which is that everyone involved with the Knicks apparently suffers from the Greek brain disease Whatthehelliswrongwithyouofinakos. How do we know this? Well, for starters, the only thing that originally prevented them from solidifying Marbury’s release was James Dolan’s refusal to accept Marbury’s offer to give back a million dollars of his $20.8 million salary. Why? Because Dolan wants two million dollars. (That is according to Mike Francesa, anyway.) And while I know the difference is a lot in real people money, in sports franchise money, that’s like a one month MetroCard and a week’s worth of lattes. Enough to be annoying but not nearly enough to be a deal-breaker.

Further evidence of this judgment-impairing illness is the fact that Donnie Walsh is likely to hold off on pursuing the deal until February 19th because he is clinging to the delusional hope that NBA teams that actually want Marbury are going to magically come out of the woodwork before the trade deadline. But guess what, Donnie? The president of the other NBA teams speak English and have, consequently, had to bear witness to all the drama that has unfolded in your clubhouse over this situation over the last several months. As previously established, the people in Greece do not speak English. At least not as a first language. I think that’s your real advantage here. So you might want to hop on it. And soon. Like before they get suspicious and bust out the old Greek-to-English dictionary and get some poor Olympiacos intern working on translating old archived Marbury-D’Antoni articles from the deadspin website. Because that will undoubtedly be the kiss of death.

That or they may also just get annoyed and impatient and start looking somewhere else.

So come on, guys. Don’t be proud. Just suck it up and get it done. We don’t need another gyro.