Beyond “Starbury”: Stephon Marbury’s “A Kid From Coney Island” is a must-see inspirational documentary for hoops fans and beyond

By Jim Walsh

Anyone who tuned into last week’s rebroadcast of the Stephon Marbury-led Minnesota Timberwolves’ win over the then-reigning NBA champion Chicago Bulls were reminded of the sensational player Marbury was in his rookie year. His quickness, toughness, and style were a thing of beauty to behold, and the idea of him being paired with his friend and fellow 20-year-old Kevin Garnett for years to come was delicious, indeed.

December 30, 1997. The frozen-for-all-time moment is of Michael Jordan and the Bulls having finally been vanquished, Marbury throwing the ball into the crowd in jubilation, and a buzz in Target Center like never before or since.

“I don’t think the future ever looked brighter for the franchise,” Wolves broadcaster Tom Hanneman recently told the StarTribune’s Kent Youngblood, of that spring of ’97. “You look back now and think, ‘What if?’”

The rest is history, or at least the history that most basketball fans know or care about: Marbury’s jealousy of Garnett’s record-setting salary literally got the best of him, his immature ego blind to the rare chemistry he had with Garnett and coach Flip Saunders, a former point guard who finally had his dream point guard, until he didn’t. Steph forced a trade to New Jersey, which also didn’t work out, so it was on to Phoenix and New York and many losses, including an especially humiliating Olympics debacle.

The rap on Marbury all these years, then, has been that he’s a brilliant individual baller and a bad team player.

But a new documentary shows that there’s much more to the story that started for most hoops fans with Darcy Frey’s terrific 2004 book “The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams,” which documented Marbury’s senior year at Lincoln High School in Coney Island. It was the first time the basketball court that sits outside the projects where Marbury and his family grew up were mythologized, but this Chike Ozah and Coodie Simmons-directed (and Forest Whitaker- and Kevin Durant-produced) feature tells a much better story than the myth.

To that end, “A Kid From Coney Island” is a great example of why we shouldn’t believe every narrative we’ve come to believe, and another good reminder that stories and people are multi–dimensional.

It’s also a love letter to that storied institution, New York basketball, without too much dredging up of the past, and a good retelling of how hip hop and basketball melded together as a pop cultural force in the ’90s. Interviews with Marbury’s close-knit family are edifying about larger societal issues around African-American poverty and despair, and the film unflinchingly depicts the gang and drug culture of the day and the stacked odds that face black people in America.

More than anything, at it’s heart, “A Kid From Coney Island” is a remarkable story about a remarkable family. Marbury’s three big brothers dreamed of playing in the NBA but never did, and Steph patterned bits of his game after theirs to become “the golden child” that made it out of the projects and into the NBA. His passing wizardry and ferocious drives to the hoop are wonderfully on display throughout the film, as is the joy with which he played.

How does it end? After all that NBA disgrace and dissing?

With a broken-hearted Steph, following his father’s death, leaving the Knicks and flying off to China, where he wins three championships and falls in love with basketball all over again. The lasting image from the doc is of Marbury’s last game in Beijing, him surrounded by an arena full of weeping Chinese basketball fans saying goodbye to their hero, their American basketball god. The passion is positively palpable, and wonderfully un-jaded.

It’s incredible footage, and one of a few tear-jerking highlights to be had in “A Kid From Coney Island,” which chronicles Marbury’s amazing personal growth and ego expansion, and poetically shows how he traveled far beyond Coney Island, and New York, and basketball itself, to shores and love he never could have imagined. What’s more, it’s inspiring to see an American kid so readily embrace China, and vice versa, especially in these days of suspicion and racism amidst the pandemic, and Marbury’s sheer wonder at it all, and his glee about how his story turned out, is beautiful to see.

To be sure, “A Kid From Coney Island” is a terrific testament to why we love sports, why we root for people who play sports, why we get gut-punched when we hear they’re down and out, and why we rejoice a little when we hear an update on someone like Marbury, who continues to inspire in the here and now, as he recently brokered a deal to bring 10 million coronavirus-fighting masks to his hometown of New York, imported from his adopted hometown of Beijing.

All of which is to say that basketball fans — especially my fellow brokenhearted-by-Steph Wolves fans — should know that it turns out that Stephon Marbury is hardly the spoiled brat of his early daze, hardly just another kid from Coney Island, but an inspiration. So much so that if you’re like me, you might find yourself online and looking for Beijing Ducks jerseys in the middle of the night.

Man, was he fun to watch.

Which, of course, is the best thing about “A Kid From Coney Island.” For anyone who misses the glory that is playing or watching live basketball, or anyone looking for stories of resolve and reinvention in these needy times, a damn good one is streaming on a sheltering-in-place screen near you.

Jim Walsh (@saintfabio) is a Minneapolis-based baller, journalist, songwriter, and author.