Via AFp – Former NBA All Star Stephon Marbury has said he hopes to use his on-court skills to market his brand of low-cost basketball shoes when he laces up for China’s Shanxi Zhongyu in the coming weeks.
“I want to bring love to Chinese fans and I want to feel the love of the Chinese fans, so I’m going to play hard and work to help Shanxi win more games,” Marbury told Tuesday’s Titan Sports Weekly, a top Chinese sports paper.
“I’ve already decided, every game I’m going to give away shoes to the fans. This is my own brand — I hope they will like them,” he said in an interview from Houston, where he was in training ahead of his arrival in China.
Shanxi Zhongyu announced Monday on their website that the often troubled point guard would arrive to China in the coming week, but team officials told AFP that a contract would not be signed until after his arrival.
Marbury averaged 19.3 points and 7.6 assists a game during 13 years in the NBA — statistics that would make him the most high-profile player to grace the Chinese professional league since Houston Rocket star Yao Ming left in 2003.
In the interview, Marbury made it clear that only by winning basketball games would he be able to market his low-cost “Starbury” brand shoes to China’s 1.3 billion consumers.
“There are a lot of kids who cannot afford a shoe that costs more than 100 dollars, but their love for basketball is the purest so I thought I could help them,” he said of his trainers, which sell for as little as 15 dollars in the US.
If he signs, the 32-year-old Marbury will be joining a team sitting near the bottom of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) table with three wins, 10 losses and only faint hopes of making the post-season playoffs.
Turning the team around could make Marbury a household name among China’s rabid basketball fans.
“I’m looking forward to joining Shanxi. I hope that I can stay a long time and can help them get to the postseason and after that go even further,” he said.
“I don’t need to prove that I can play basketball — the CBA fans only need to watch me to see that I can still play.”
During the 2007-2008 NBA season, Marbury refused to play for his team, the New York Knicks, after being benched by coach Isiah Thomas in an ugly spat that drew national headlines.
His unhappiness lasted into the following year before the Knicks bought out his 42-million-dollar contract in early 2009. He was subsequently signed by the Boston Celtics, the last NBA team for which he played.
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