Whilst enjoying (the big excuse to throw a party known as) the AVP Long Beach Open earlier today, I noticed one iced-out, heavily-tattooed man having the time of his life doing “the wave” in the crowd.
Wow, I thought, From up here, that kind of looks like Stephon Marbury. In fact, he looks a lot like him. Check out that tattoo on his dome…
Holy crap Stephon Marbury is at the AVP Long Beach Open.
Stephon Marbury apparently LOVES “The Wave.”
Not hard to pick out an NBA player at a beach volleyball tournament.
Some might say that tattooing your own logo on yourself is… odd. Others might say that head tattoos in general are a bit on the crazy side. I will have to say that it makes it a lot easier to recognize someone. I doubt there’s a Starbury lookalike with identical head ink out there.
It’s damn near impossible to not enjoy yourself at a beach volleyball tournament, but Starbury was absolutely loving it. About three or four AVP staffers were sitting next to him, answering question after question from the Coney Island native who apparently has never seen this strange “volleyball” game before. They kept trying to teach Marbury the setting motion in the air, which completely perplexed him.
But there was no greater fan in the crowd and he was clearly into the championship game, still taking time to pose for several pictures with fans. I’m sure the jokes will abound, but with everything swirling (read: crashing) around Marbury, it was refreshing to see him showing the fun, joker side that is often overshadowed by the odd, quirky, off-his-rocker attention-grabber side.
I know I’ll get roasted for feeling sympathy for one of the NBA’s highest-paid and least-productive players… so be it. But Steph, to me, was always an immensely talented player that never played on a team that was able to properly utilize his abilities. That’s both his team’s fault for wasting his skills and his fault for not adapting, but the fact remains that only three players in NBA history have averaged 20 points and 8 assists per game in their careers (Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, Stephon Marbury).
I could go on and on defending Steph, and maybe one day I’ll write that column, but for today it was just a nice surprise to see him enjoying the action.
Oh yeah, Jake Gibb and hometown boy Sean Rosenthal stole the Men’s Final away from defending champions Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers. Complete recap and photos will be up tonight.
