It’s not surprising that some professional athletes playing abroad want to return to their home country after a year or two away. But what about if an athlete hasn’t played at home for eight years and still wants to come back? That’s not something you see every day.
However, 40-year old NBA veteran Stephon Marbury falls into that category, and he posted on Instagram today that he wants to return to the NBA after playing in China for the last eight years.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BY8s7WDFzFI/
Marbury has been playing in China since 2010, and actually has a contract he intends to fulfill for the 2017-18 season. But once the Chinese season ends, he wants to finish his career in the States.
Marbury is expected to live up to his one-year contract with the Beijing Fly Dragons during the 2017-18 Chinese Basketball Association season and retire from the league afterward, a source said. Once the CBA season is over, which could be as early as March, the 40-year-old would like to return to the NBA after a long hiatus and retire from playing in the league.
The NBA regular season ends in the second week of April, and given that the CBA season typically runs through mid to late February, that wouldn’t give Marbury much time to find a new team.
But by that time of the year, plenty of NBA teams will already be out of playoff contention, and one of them could bring in Marbury just to get some extra attention over the final weeks of the season. However, given the way his tenure with the New York Knicks ended in 2009, I think that’s one team we can officially rule out of the eventual Starbury sweepstakes.
[ESPN]
