Ex-NBA Star Stephon Marbury Says He 'Wanted to Die' in 2009

Stephon Marbury was only a two-time NBA All-Star, but the mercurial point guard — who now plays professionally in China at 37 — made enough headlines on and off the court during his lengthy American career to warrant “household name” status.

The New York City native repeated a crash-and-burn narrative arc for a handful of teams throughout his career, but it was not until his time with the New York Knicks from 2003-08 that things went from bad to awful.

"I wanted to die," Marbury said in an interview on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel that will air Tuesday night, Jan. 20, via ESPN. "I wanted to kill myself some days. I did. ... It wasn't about basketball. It started to become about me. Because I was that depressed and I was that sick.”

Marbury was excellent in his first full New York season, averaging 21.9 points per game, but the positives began slipping away slowly. His shoe brand, Starbury, did not stick at retail outfits, and his father died at a Knicks game in 2007.

"When everything went on with the Knicks, and, you know, my father passed on, the brand was — it was basically losing life slowly," Marbury said. "And I was watching it. And I think that was hurting me more than seeing my basketball career going in the direction that it was going. ... I was trapped in my thoughts. I was trapped in how I felt about how I felt I was treated. I was trapped with decisions that I made.”

But he has had a resurgence in China, where he is revered.

"To be told that you're a loser, that you can't win, and that you can't do this, and you can't do that," Marbury said. "Then to come some place without speaking the language with the cultural barriers, to be able to accomplish that — that goal was, is beyond anything. ... I left one place where they was basically hating me. And I come to another place where they love me? I'm like, 'Why would I want to go back to a place where they hate me?' I mean, that makes no sense to me.”

Check out some of his overseas highlights below:

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