NBA Insider with Ken Berger

Congratulations to Bob Glauber for the record traffic numbers achieved by his NFL blog, which Newsday’s Web people announced today. As my father used to say, in the pre-Metrocard days, “That and a token will get you on the subway!”

I received some interesting feedback on the Stephon Marbury column I wrote Sunday night. Most of it was positive, but there were some negative vibes, too. Since I criticize people for a living, I can take criticism. I just thought I’d share both sides and get your thoughts.

In an email with the subject line “Read This When You Stop Weeping,” Robert wrote as follows:

“Who wrote this article, Suzyn Waldman? Stephan Marbury lost his mentor, his aunt and his father all in one month?? Ohmigod, I can't control my tears. Gimme a break! People get hit with loss all the time. I feel bad for the guy but control yourself, for crying out loud. This article reads like it was written by a high school kid.”

One thing’s for sure: Newsday’s NBA blog isn’t going to set any records for spelling …

I can see where someone like Robert might have thought I’d lost my gumption and cut Marbury too much slack in the column. No, on second thought, I can’t. While everyone else in New York has been blaming Isiah Thomas for everything that is wrong with the Knicks, I’ve been pointing the finger at the real problem for weeks: Marbury. I make no apologies for that. From a basketball standpoint, I stand by my reasoning.

In fact, I was so confident in my opinion that Marbury’s play has been dragging the Knicks down more than Isiah’s coaching that I went about writing another scathing Marbury column Sunday night. Ian O’Connor of the Bergen Record and I spoke with Magic Johnson at halftime, and after getting Magic’s thoughts on what the Knicks need from their point guard, I was never more convinced that Marbury wasn’t providing it and probably never would.

So I went to town on Marbury in my column – fairly, respectfully, but harshly. I thought what I wrote was well-deserved … until …

Until 10 minutes before I was supposed to send it, when word began to spread in the media work room at the Garden that Marbury’s father had passed away during the game.

I called Jeff Weinberg at the Newsday office and pleaded with him for a little time to completely rewrite my column. There would be plenty of days to pick apart Marbury’s play, plenty of days to quote Magic and Steve Nash about what a point guard really should be. This was clearly not one of those days, even if I’d already written the !@%$@ thing and was supposed to be sending it to the office for editing in 10 minutes.

Jeff, being the cool ferry captain that he is, agreed to extend my deadline … by 15 minutes. So what you read in Monday’s paper was written pretty much off the top of my head in approximately 20 minutes. (Or, in the interest of full disclosure, 30 minutes, given that I sent 10 minutes late.)

I am not looking for any sympathy, nor trying to justify what I wrote. Just giving you the background. I thought it would have been in incredibly bad taste to trot out another Marbury rip job that night. Fortunately for me, our paper doesn’t suffer the same early deadline problem that some of our competitors do, or that’s exactly what you would’ve read in most editions of Monday’s paper.

Now, go back to reading Glauber’s blog. Tell him I said hi.