After a well-publicized Internet meltdown and a few sparse appearances, Stephon Marbury has returned to basketball — in China. He has left the country to join up with the Brave Dragons.
The team is officially called Shanxi Fenjiu, named for a local grain alcohol. According to ESPN, home court is “a grimy 5,300-seat arena with dragon decals peeling off the worn hardwood. The sports heroes whose posters hang on the baby blue walls outside the locker room are Chinese ping-pong and badminton athletes.”
When asked how he ended up in such unusual circumstances, he replied:
“It was an opportunity to allow my brand to grow in a different distribution channel,” he said, referring to his Starbury line of low-priced athletic shoes and clothing. “And I wanted to get back onto the basketball court.”
Team owner Wang Xingjiang saw the entrepreneur Marbury. He invited him to play in China after reading online that he didn’t have an NBA contract and offered him a salary of $100,000, though the figure isn’t yet finalized, Wang said.
“He’s helping me with the team. I can help him in business. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to afford him,” said Wang, sitting in one of the more than a dozen faded armchairs and loveseats lining the sideline that make up the VIP section at Binhe Sports Arena. “He wants to promote his shoes and I want to be his agent in China.”
Marbury shipped 50,000 pairs of Starbury basketball shoes to China, but said the marketing plan was “secret.” On the court, Marbury wears black high-tops embroidered with his Chinese name, “Ma Bu Li.”
He’s opened a store on popular Chinese online retailer taobao.com, but Marbury had no idea how many pairs have been sold so far.
“I haven’t even been focused on that, to be honest,” he said. “I’ve been totally focused on basketball.”
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Former Raiders defensive tackle, Warren Sapp has been charged with domestic battery, according to ESPN.
Miami Beach police spokesman Juan Sanchez says Sapp was brought in Saturday afternoon for questioning, but has since been charged.
According to a police news release, Sapp has been charged with one count of misdemeanor domestic battery. The charge stems from an incident early Saturday morning at a South Beach hotel.
Sapp, 37, is an analyst for the NFL Network (and Showtime’s “Inside the NFL”), but will not be part of the NFL Network’s Super Bowl coverage on Sunday as a result of the charges.
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Michael Irvin has been accused of rape. A civil suit was filed against him Thursday in Broward Circuit Court, but he has fired back with a $100 million countersuit.
The suit, filed in Dallas County, Texas, asks for $100 million due to allegations that the former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver and Pro Football Hall of Famer raped a woman identified as “Jane Doe” at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Fla., in 2007.
According to the woman’s suit, she claims the attack happened late on July 4 or early on July 5, 2007. The suit claims Irvin bought the woman alcohol and took her to his hotel room, where Irvin raped her and another man forced her to perform oral sex. The other man is unidentified because, according to the woman’s lawyer, David Lister, she doesn’t know who he is.
The suit claims Irvin’s brother, Derrick Irvin, “assisted in covering the sexual assault and rape up,” according to the lawsuit.
No criminal charges have been filed, as of yet.
Irvin is currently in Miami for the Super Bowl and will be on the air this weekend for the NFL Network, but has been released by ESPN as host of its radio program “The Michael Irvin Show.”
“His contract was up and the show has not performed,” ESPN said in a statement released Friday. “We had previously decided to cancel the show and determined this morning to make it effective today. The permanent replacement begins at 11 a.m. CST [Friday] — Ben Rogers and Jeff ‘Skin’ Wade [“Ben and Skin”].”
Irvin’s lawsuit claims that the civil suit filed by the woman caused him to be fired from his radio job. “This is nothing more than a thinly veiled effort to carry out Plaintiff’s extortion plot while capitalizing on the media circus that is Super Bowl weekend,” Irvin’s lawsuit said.
–gerald radford
