"When it comes to leaving teams and joining new ones, Stephon Marbury has possessed the kind of ebullient optimism and uncanny vision that he never quite had on the court.

"We are who we are," Marbury once told me when I covered his team. "We're stuck. The only way they make this team better is if they trade me."

He made that prescient comment in June 2001, when he was still with the Nets, not knowing that a week later the Nets would trade him to Phoenix for point guard Jason Kidd. Kidd proceeded to take the Nets to back-to-back N.B.A. finals.

"I think it will make my career go through the roof," Marbury said then of his trade to the Suns. "I'm just happy, to be honest. I'm happy the situation has passed.""