The Dish: Giving Steph, T-Mac and Chicago greats their due

Three questions, three answers.

1.) So ... Steph?

"I don't know," LeBron James said Thursday, when asked about Stephon Marbury's potential with the Celtics, before offering some less-than-convincing compliments about Marbury's skills. One suspects nothing's really changed in the King's mind from 2007, when James had said of Marbury, his 2004 Olympic teammate, "I couldn't have a guy like that on my team."

We'll count James as ... uncertain.

So ... Steph?

"I told him, 'I don't want you to fit in your game,'" Doc Rivers said by telephone Friday. "'I want you to fit in the locker room.'"

The NBA's version of Randy Moss joining the Patriots boils down to just that -- can Stephon leave Starbury in New York and be a worker bee in Beantown? Forget Marbury's past issues with Kevin Garnett; do you think Danny Ainge would have bothered picking up the phone if KG had voiced any real objection? Ditto Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. The basketball will take care of itself. There are minutes for Marbury (no one thinks the C's will be handing the ball to Gabe Pruitt in crunch time and in the playoffs) and his presence will help the likes of Eddie House, getting him off the ball and off of guarding bigger point guards.

Most important, there is practice time for Marbury to shake off the rust of more than a year of forced inactivity. After Sunday's game against Detroit, Boston has two days off before a short trip to New Jersey on Wednesday. They have two more days off after their March 8 game against Orlando, another two days off after another Sunday matinee and an unheard-of four days off in early April. The Celtics have only three sets of back-to-backs left in the regular season, and the last of those are on the last two days of the season.

So the Celtics won't have to slow down waiting for Marbury to speed up. They can use Marbury, House and newly signed Mikki Moore as a high-octane trio off the bench (though I'd expect to see Kevin Garnett on the floor quite a bit with this defense-allergic group). Sure, Marbury has to get his legs and get all of Boston's sets, but he doesn't have to be ready next week; he has to be ready in six weeks, when the playoffs begin.

But basketball has always been the (relatively) easy part for Marbury. His problem is when the game is over and the lights are turned off and he's left to his own devices. His penchant for self-destruction has left four franchises reeling. His good works in the communities in which he's lived are duly noted (I give Marbury props for trying to merchandise an affordable shoe for kids that don't have his millions), but they've been overshadowed by his career-long insistence on scoring first -- which would be fine if he didn't insist he was, really, a pass-first point guard -- his demand in Minnesota that he should be paid the same as Garnett, his issues with Keith Van Horn in New Jersey and Amar'e Stoudemire in Phoenix, his feud in New York with Larry Brown and Isiah Thomas and his bizarre rantings to the New York Post, and, of course, the ugliness of the Anucha Browne Sanders mess.

Rivers laid down the law early to Marbury, well before the two sides agreed to a deal. No entourage. No cousins barking orders at cowed team employees. Immediate family only in the team's family room, just like the rest of the team. Nobody but players on the practice floor. If you haven't earned the right to be on the court, you don't belong there.

Ubuntu, remember?

"It's not about Stephon," Rivers said. "It's only about the Celtics."

But Rivers needed to know just how strong the Big Three wanted to take on Marbury. He didn't want tepid support; he wanted them to own it as much as management.

"I told them to convince me," Rivers said. So Garnett, Pierce and Allen made a strong argument about the team's needs and their willingness to welcome Marbury with open arms.

It's hard to believe that Marbury, a pretty sharp guy, doesn't get that this is a gift from the rafters, his last, best chance to resurrect his career. If Boston wins another championship, a James Posey-type payday will surely await him, his reputation will get a Sprewell circa 1999 rebuffing and most past sins will be forgiven by most people. If the C's go out early, though, Marbury will get the blame.

I'd count on Marbury being Employee No. 8 without complaint; for there to be a few Batman and Robin moments with Garnett; and for Boston to be an even tougher out this season than last. With Detroit in obvious decline, the Celtics' road back to the Finals is that much easier.

2.) Are the Rockets better off without Tracy McGrady?

From now until April, absolutely.

In the playoffs? Not a chance.

In the regular season, the Rockets can force feed Yao Ming most nights and get away with it. While there are a few teams with the coaching bona fides and personnel to slow the big man some nights, there are too many Memphises and Sacramentos on the schedule for Houston to have too much problem getting Yao the ball, and the Rockets can win most nights with their defense, anyway.

But in the playoffs, when defenses are better and teams can zero in on one opponent, the Rockets look exceedingly vulnerable without T-Mac. They don't have anyone with his ability to rise and shoot over defenders, to create offense where there is nothing happening, to average a neat 28 per postseason game as McGrady did last year.

McGrady's season-ending microfracture surgery leaves the Rockets in a quandary. For now, there's no doubt that a cloud has been lifted from Toyota Center. As I wrote several weeks ago, McGrady's teammates weren't frustrated by him personally; they respect his game and know how much pain he's been in, taking injections and dragging one leg up and down the floor for almost a year. But they were nonetheless getting tired of not knowing when or if he was going to play on a given night, tired of not knowing who would play and who would not as a result, tired of waiting for McGrady to decide whether to play in pain or shut it down for the rest of the season.

(With T-Mac now sidelined six to 12 months, who knows what his future in Houston will be? The Rockets would have had any number of suitors next season for a healthy McGrady in the last year of his contract, with $22 million available to luxury tax-threatened teams potentially coming off their books in time for the summer of 2010. But tax reliever or no, no team will take a flier on McGrady until they see him back on the court and healthy, and the likelihood of that happening before next year's trade deadline is slim.)

Houston now has a clear identity. It knows that Ron Artest will start at the two. It knows that Shane Battier is almost back to full speed after offseason foot surgery. It knows the way to win games is to sic Artest and Battier on the opponent's best perimeter guy, as the Rockets did to near perfection against LeBron James last week, then get Yao 20-30 touches a game on the offensive end.

"They know who's going to play," coach Rick Adelman said. "They know what the rotation's going to be."

Artest came off the bench while McGrady started. He didn't complain. Mostly. But it's probably better for Houston that that's no longer an issue as the regular season winds down.

"Obviously, I've been a starter since I've been in the NBA," Artest said. "I could be a starter on any team. You put LeBron and Kobe on the same team, I would make the argument that I should start."

Artest's energy can take a team in multiple directions, but when he's channeled and focused, he still is an opponent-wrecking presence. Against Cleveland, Artest used his 260 pounds effectively against James's 270; he didn't try to muscle James around, a sure invitation to three quick first-half fouls; he became more of a wall, absorbing James's contact without giving ground, his still-excellent footwork keeping him squared up and not reaching. Twice, he turned James into Battier, who drew two charges.

That's great for now. But in the playoffs, who'll get that key bucket?

GM Daryl Morey believes in second-year point guard Aaron Brooks, as evidenced by the Rockets' trading starting point Rafer Alston to Orlando in a three-team deal with Memphis that brought Kyle Lowry from the Grizzlies. Brooks and Lowry have ridiculous quickness, with the ability to break down defenses, get to the rim and kick the ball out to shooters. And Brooks is a better perimeter shooter than Skip.

But Brooks and Lowry are both small, and they're both susceptible to pounding the ball too much. At the end of the first half against Cleveland, Brooks dribbled, and dribbled, and dribbled, as the clock ran out without the Rockets getting off a quality shot -- drawing an on-court rebuke from Battier.

As ever, Yao puts adjusting to a new point guard on his big shoulders, even though Brooks has a penchant for entry passes on the bounce, something a 7-foot-6 fella shouldn't have to deal with.

"Aaron's been on this team two years already," Yao said. "We have a kind of chemistry. Passing the ball, it's about timing, it's about position. I can't just point to them. What do you need to do? I think I just need to catch those balls."

Rolling of late, the Rockets look like they could still become a factor in the Western Conference, as long as Battier and Yao stay healthy. ("At times, he made Dwight Howard look very small," Artest said of Yao. "He made Superman look like Mini-Me.") But what will happen when the temperatures rise and the defenses contract and the refs put their whistles away?

Even a one-legged T-Mac would probably be welcome.

3.) Has Chicago had a worse day in sports than last Thursday?

For sure, losing Walter Payton in 1999 to a rapid cancer was one of the dark days in the history of that great city's great sports franchises. But for the Bulls to lose both Norm Van Lier and Johnny "Red" Kerr within 24 hours was devastating, even to the players on the team who may not have known either man's career or impact on the franchise.

Van Lier was a man of my father's generation. They are proud men, for whom respect is owed and so often, not paid. They do not call attention to themselves, but they are pained that their contributions are not more widely known and celebrated. Men like Spencer Haywood, whose legal victories as the NBA's first "hardship" case cleared the way for players to come to the pros early, making them untold extra millions. And men like Van Lier, whose Bulls never won a title but who were the epitome of hard-nosed, physical basketball as it was played during the league's unlamented 1970s era. Was there ever a tougher backcourt than Van Lier and Jerry Sloan? Seriously.

Van Lier didn't mince words, and he was no homer, which you knew if you ever heard him in the studio in recent years on Chicago's Comcast SportsNet. If the Bulls were stinking up the joint, he'd tell you. But if you were punking his old team, watch out.

The Chicago Tribune wrote last week of Van Lier's anger when then-Miami forward James Posey laid out Bulls guard Kirk Hinrich with a cheap shot during the 2006 playoffs.

"Norm was offended," said his Comcast partner, Mark Schanowski. "He said, 'Posey, I'll meet you outside the locker room and kick your ass.'"

If Van Lier was the no-bull (pardon the pun) uncle of the Bulls' family, Kerr was, no question, the patriarch, more beloved than owner Jerry Reinsdorf, as respected as Van Lier and Sloan and as popular as Michael Jordan. In leading the expansion Bulls to the playoffs in 1966 as its coach -- something never accomplished before and never accomplished since -- Kerr endeared himself in the Windy City, and never really left, spending most of the next several decades as the team's color voice on radio and television.

A walking dictionary of Bulls' history, Kerr was always available and generous with his time, detailing the infamous preseason fight between Van Lier and Sloan after the former had been traded to Cincinnati in 1969 -- when the two wound up taking their on-court fight out into the hallway at Illinois State University -- over and over again. He quickly became a confidant of Jordan's, no mean or easy feat; when Kerr was honored last month in a ceremony at United Center, in which a statue of him was unveilied, Jordan and Scottie Pippen were among the standing-room attendees. GM John Paxson presented Kerr with a photo collage. A fan named Barack Obama paid tribute via videotape.

My favorite Kerr story, though, came when he was a player, at the end of a career in which he set a then-NBA record with 844 consecutive games played. Like many big men, Kerr's feet were the first to tell him it was getting close to quitting time. They barked worse and worse with every passing days. So Kerr did the only thing he could.

He lied to them.

C'mon, legs, he'd say to himself. One more game. Then I'll quit.

"There were mornings when I couldn't move from the bed," he recalled in Terry Pluto's brilliant oral history of those years, Tall Tales. "I'd be there and my feet would be shaking and jerking -- they were telling me something. Even driving to the arena, I didn't think I could make it. During warmups, I'd feel a little better. But what made it special was the national anthem and then hearing my name announced as the starting center. It went on for 12 years, but my heart pounded away at my chest and my palms would sweat. I wanted to play so badly right then and it happened before every game for 12 years."

Proud men. A profound loss.

My condolences to both the Van Lier and Kerr families, and my thanks to them for allowing us to share their husband/father/siblings' lives so freely, and for so long.