Invisible Man?

I'm not quite sure I understand Shawn Marion's whining. If he's so underrated, why is he getting on all these All-Star teams? How's he onTeam USA? I've never heard anyone describe him as anything other than integral to the Phoenix Suns' success.

4/13/07 2:20PM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

Phoenix should appoint a playoff czar to get them to the finals. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Posted by: steve duncan on April 13, 2007 02:26 PM

Viewing onesself as underrated is integral to being a star athlete. It's where all drive comes from. And every time anyone ever wins a championship, no one had ever given the champion any respect, and no one believed they could do it.

Posted by: Dalton on April 13, 2007 02:32 PM

Marion is only invisible during the playoffs.

Posted by: blah on April 13, 2007 02:37 PM

what exactly was the point of that article.

and its pretty dumb to think the defensive player of the year should go to a guy on a team that gives up 103 points a game.

Posted by: MP on April 13, 2007 03:10 PM

It's gotta be the shoes.

How much money does Marion make from endorsement deals? How much do other Team USA members or All-Stars make? How much do Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire make?

Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot on April 13, 2007 03:19 PM

Hardcore basketball fans (and the blogging heads you're reading) admire Marion's unique talents. But do mainstream NBA fans recognize him? I doubt it.

It's an inherent difficulty of his game: it doesn't capture the public's imagination the way Nash's creativity or Amare's power easily does. I can see it being difficult for someone who's probably one of the best 15 players in the world to be the third most recognized guy on his own team.

That being said, he's Scottie Pippen, not Jordan. He can't really make his own shot, you couldn't build a team solely around him. He's in a perfect situation in Phoenix for everything except adulation. The children of Darfur shouldn't stay awake at night wondering when people will start buying Marion jerseys.

The big question is, how is Phoenix going to pay everyone? The Matrix has a huge deal, I think it goes to 18 million next year. Their cap is in trouble.

Posted by: Jerry on April 13, 2007 03:35 PM

Agree with Nicholas Beaudrot - he is saying he is unappreciated by the fans (who don't choose the Team USA or All Star team backups). Take a look at his votes for the all star team - does he get an appropriate amount? How about endorsements?

He doesn't want to be "integral to the Suns success". Raja Bell is "integral to the Suns success"; it's not a high bar. He wants to be a star with endorsements who is in the mix to be an all-star starter.

Posted by: Al on April 13, 2007 03:39 PM

yes, if you notice marion always seems to be invisible in the playoffs, it's because teams like the spurs can gameplan on blocking him out and not letting him get in transition-in that case, he becomes a much less valuable player.
don't get me wrong, he's very valuable in the suns offense, but he's not a scorer in the vein of vince carter, who can briefly take over games by himself, although he does many other things (everything else?) better than vince. i can't see him ever averaging even 25 points a game-i think suns offense pretty much maxs out his skills.
if he leaves in free agency, marion might fit in well with the suns-lite in toronto, but on another team with a half-court offense, he'll instead be a slightly better (and much better paid) version of gerald wallace.

Posted by: Jamie on April 13, 2007 03:42 PM

WRT "Viewing onesself as underrated is integral to being a star athlete" -- I'd say rather that most NBA players have to deal with the shock of suddenly not being seen as the Greatest, which they were at every stage from childhood until now. The wonder isn't that so many players pout and sulk at not getting the respect/playing time/etc. they "deserve", the wonder is that so many of them do manage to adjust.

Posted by: Sam Penrose on April 13, 2007 03:45 PM

Well he's the third-best-known player on the team. On most teams in the league he'd be #1, and in a few cases #2. He'd have to go to like Houston to find another place where he'd be third banana.

Posted by: right on April 13, 2007 03:46 PM

Time for my monthly plug for Jack McCallum's book about last year's suns ":07 or Less". Lot of good stuff about Marion's psyche. Just speculating, considering that he had to go to JuCo, and was not really hailed coming out of UNLV, that his feeling undervalued is not a new thing.

On the other hand, I think he has the best nickname in the league.

Posted by: Pooh on April 13, 2007 04:17 PM

"and its pretty dumb to think the defensive player of the year should go to a guy on a team that gives up 103 points a game."

Oh no, not this again. Well, without opening up the debate about whether ppg allowed is the best measure of defense, I'll just say it's certainly possible that a great defender could be on a crappy defensive team, if the rest of the team sucks. In the NBA, it's hard to have a one-man defense. Even a great defensive center like Duncan needs help.

Personally, I don't think I'd pick Marion as defensive player of the year, but I would definitely put him on the all-defensive team. Dude guards Tony Parker and Duncan in the same game, or Terry and Dirk, or Cassell and Brand. That's crazy.

Maybe Marion bitches so much because he plays fantasy basketball. Under most fantasy rules, Marion is one of the top 5 players in the league, because he does so many things (everything except assists). In real basketball, he's awesome, but he's more of a top-15 guy than a top-5 guy.

Posted by: too many steves on April 13, 2007 04:25 PM

BTW, anybody else sense a contradiction between Matthew complaining about Marion's "whining" and Matthew's love for Agent Zero - who is the KING of feeling underappreciated?

Posted by: Al on April 13, 2007 04:37 PM

"Time for my monthly plug for Jack McCallum's book about last year's suns ":07 or Less". Lot of good stuff about Marion's psyche."

Yup.

The constant theme underlying the whole book is how unappreciated in a world where Nash and Amare both are more important than he is.

Posted by: Petey on April 13, 2007 04:55 PM

Lets try that again for readability:

The constant theme underlying the whole book is how unappreciated Marion feels in a world where Nash and Amare both are more important than he is.

Posted by: Petey on April 13, 2007 04:56 PM

Petey,

Are more important, or are seen as more important? Nash is more important that Marion, but I'm not sure Amare is. They did pretty well last year without Amare, and with Marion filling some of the Amare role. I think they'd have been much worse if it was Marion that had missed a year.

That said, they need everybody to make a title run.

Posted by: too many steves on April 13, 2007 05:12 PM

too many steves is right - Marion is more important than Amare. Which makes sense, since Marion is a better player.

Posted by: Al on April 13, 2007 05:14 PM

He wants to be a star with endorsements who is in the mix to be an all-star starter.

But, look, it's hard out there for a Western Conference forward. Duncan, Dirk, and Garnett are clearly better.

Posted by: Matthew Yglesias on April 13, 2007 05:31 PM

"too many steves is right - Marion is more important than Amare. Which makes sense, since Marion is a better player."

Meh. Marion is elite at what he does, but I'd still rather have to replace his production than replace Amare's.

And in terms of appearance, he's clearly the number three guy, of course. Same situation as Camby on the Nuggets, only that it doesn't seem to be the great white whale of Camby's daily life.

Posted by: Petey on April 13, 2007 05:35 PM

No, the great white whale of Camby's daily life would be getting out of bed without injuring himself.

Anyway, Petey, do you think the Suns would have made the conference finals last year if they'd had Amare and not Marion? Obviously, we'll never know, but I doubt it.

Posted by: too many steves on April 13, 2007 06:07 PM

I actually tend to agree that Marion is a better player than Amare - however, to borrow baseball terminology (I saw this comparison with Durant and Oden, which I had made previously but never in this terms), Amare has a higher Value Over Replacement Player in that there are a lot of guys who can do Matrix-like things, but Amare might in the Karl Malone realm as far as finishers go

Posted by: Pooh on April 13, 2007 06:23 PM

You could be right, Pooh. But although there are guys who do Matrix-type things, I can't think of anybody who does all of them, and also has the insane foot-speed the Suns need from their bigs.

Amare is indeed awesome, but Marion's better. If nothing else, the Suns need all the good defenders they can get, and Marion's their best, Raja Bell included.

Posted by: too many steves on April 13, 2007 06:32 PM

marion's just okay. he does guard dirk and howard and duncan and parker....but not particularly well or anything. he's not some sort of stopper. He is "versatile" in the sense that the suns sometimes don't have anyone else who can play defense at all.

and he doesn't have plays run for him for a reason: he's not a very good scorer. If he were better than amare or nash, he's get more plays. but he isn't. he can catch and shoot and finish at the basket off the pass. lots of dudes do that.

Posted by: MP on April 13, 2007 06:49 PM

It's that damn ugly-ass "jump shot" of his.

Posted by: shnooky on April 13, 2007 06:49 PM

"No, the great white whale of Camby's daily life would be getting out of bed without injuring himself."

The Nuggets are actually going to be accidental luxury taxpayers this year because Camby is going to hit a games played incentive the team never thought he'd make.

Posted by: Petey on April 13, 2007 06:52 PM

"integral to..."
Problem is, he wants to be thought of as "responsible for..."

Posted by: kingspawn on April 14, 2007 09:54 AM

mirc
mirç
mırc
mırç
mircturk
turkmirc
mirc indir
mirc yukle
mirch
mırch
mirc turk
turk mirc
mırcturk
turkmırc
mırc turk
turk mırc
turkiyemirc
türkiyemirc
turkiye mirc
türkiye mirc
mircturkiye
mirctürkiye
mirc turkiye
mircturk
turkmırc
muhabbet
forum
forum
turkforum
turkiyeforum
mirc
turkmirc
toplist
site ekle
pagerank
turkmirc
turkforum
sohbet
chat
sohbet odaları
bedava sohbet
bedava chat
türk
karar