Stephon Marbury Reveals How He Went From Making $20 Million To 0 Before Finding Peace In China
Credit: Fadeaway World
NBA players heading to China to continue their professional careers became a somewhat common sight in recent years, and Stephon Marbury was the first notable name to make that transition. Marbury, who played 13 seasons in the NBA, headed to China back in 2010, and he was asked about that decision during an appearance on the MaXed Out podcast.
“When I left, it was pretty much at that point there was nothing else to do,” Marbury said. “I wasn’t going to perform. I wasn’t that type of person or player, so I left, and when I went, I was depressed. I wanted to kill myself during a period of time. I didn’t kill myself; I didn’t act on it, but that’s what I felt. I got to clear that up.
“Mental illness as well, thank God I was able to move to the grace and get myself back in a good space,” Marbury continued. “During that time, I was suffering from loss. I lost my coach that taught all my brothers how to play, my aunt the next week, then my dad the next week. Then my mom checked in the hospital like three weeks after we buried my dad on her deathbed.”
Marbury’s father, Don, had passed away on Dec. 2, 2007. His mother, Mabel, would survive, but he had already lost too many people close to him.
Marbury’s play on the court was declining, too, and he didn’t want to play basketball anymore. To go with all of this, his Starbury brand also shut down in 2009. Just about everything was going wrong.
“I was in the darkest space,” Marbury said. “And then basketball wasn’t going well. Goes from 20 million to zero. My brand started to fail. Everything was going like [down]… Somebody was like, ‘Yo, what about China?’ And I was like, ‘China? That’s far.’ But it’s like, yo, there’s 300 million people there that play ball. I was like, what?
“After that, that ignited my whole everything,” Marbury continued. “And then I came here thinking I was going to be coming here doing my bread. And I ended up coming here just to hoop and enjoy my life. The peace, the love… Everything completely changed in my life as far as like how I saw my life. It wasn’t about basketball anymore.
“It’s about my peace and about how I felt within myself in my everyday walk and how I woke up and how I went to bed,” Marbury added.
Marbury signed with the Shanxi Zhongyu Brave Dragons in 2010 and averaged 22.9 points and 9.5 assists per game in the 2009-10 season. He’d then spend a year with the Foshan Dralions and followed that up by signing with the Beijing Ducks.
It was with the Ducks that Marbury enjoyed his best years in China. He led them to CBA titles in 2012, 2014, and 2015, and was named Finals MVP for that third championship. Marbury was also named International MVP in 2013 and made seven All-Star teams in total.
Marbury would eventually leave the Ducks in 2017 and then retired in 2018 after playing one final season with the Beijing Fly Dragons. He had become such a sensation in China by then that they erected his statue and constructed a museum in his honor.
Deciding to go play in China was arguably the greatest decision Marbury made in his life.