THE ODYSSEY
Stephon Marbury and Dennis Page first met back in 1994, during the making of SLAM Issue 1. That first meeting led to Marbury writing the first-ever SLAM High School Diary. Earlier this year, they hopped on the phone to discuss everything—from Steph’s childhood in Coney Island to playing for the Knicks to winning three championships with the Beijing Ducks. The following highlights some of the key moments across that journey.
This interview has been edited significantly for print. To read the full Q+A, visit slamonline.com
THE SHOWBIZ & KG ERA
DENNIS PAGE: Your NBA career started alongside your friend Kevin Garnett. That Minnesota squad made the playoffs back-to-back years and then broke up. What’s the story there?
All of the stuff about how I was jealous of Kevin Garnett making $126 million. It really doesn’t make sense when you think about it. They put a salary cap the following year. You couldn’t make any more money than what the maximum amount was. If you could only make this amount of money, and I’m being offered the max from them and from whoever else would be offering, obviously it can’t be about no money, right? These are the rules. Second of all, when I made my decision to Minnesota is not culturally diverse. It’s cold there. I don’t even want to tell you how many times I almost died on black ice. I was like, I was trying to get back to the Knicks, right? Or try to go back to the tri-state area. I said,
