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Stephon Marbury is one of those weird characters who has just the right mix of "crazy" and "keepin' it real" where you can't ever be sure whether to trust or distrust him. Personally, I think he's a bad apple who keeps getting too many chances, but some people feel differently.

After Marbury recently did a Knickerbocker-beat-down of an interview with the New York Post, I would imagine no one who plays professional basketball in the Big Apple is much of a fan either. Marbury's quotes are full of disparaging remarks, as he essentially urged any free agents to avoid Donnie Walsh and Mike D'Antoni like the plague.

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Matt Moore set the table on Jason Kidd's impending free agency -- Dallas, New York, Cleveland and Portland figure to be the best options. Though Kidd has publicly said he'd give the Mavericks dibs, you'll be interested to know Kidd will spend Wednesday, the first day of the free agency period, in New York City chatting with the Knicks.

Frank Isola of the New York Daily News reports that Kidd will meet with Knicks president Donnie Walsh early Wednesday, hoping to get a commitment. NY cannot offer more than the mid-level exception (a starting salary of less than $6 million) unless Walsh works out a sign-and-trade with Dallas, which holds Kidd's Bird rights. But the Knicks certainly have a hole at the point. Chris Duhon, ahem, ain't getting it done.

As teams get eliminated from the 2009 NBA playoff picture, Fork 'Em figures out what went wrong.

There's been a movement of late, first spewed by David Friedman of Pro Basketball News and later parroted by Marc Berman of the New York Post, to assert Mike D'Antoni hasn't actually helped the Knicks improve at all. This, frankly, is contrarian garbage. The Knicks didn't end up in the playoffs, but the franchise has clearly seen a new dawn.

Stephon Marbury's arbitration hearing with the Knicks regarding the team's $400,000 fine for his alleged refusal to suit up earlier this year is set for Tuesday, but Marc Berman of the New York Post reports that Marbury will meet face to face with Donnie Walsh (hopefully on a bench with a camera rolling) one last time before the hearing in hopes of finally reaching a resolution -- and perhaps even a buyout.

Why should we believe that Marbury and Walsh might finally reach an accord? Because for the first time all year, there's a legitimate deadline in place: if Marbury isn't placed on waivers by this coming Sunday, he won't be eligible to appear on the postseason roster of any other team.

Okay, so by now you've probably had it up to here with Stephon Marbury coverage. Will he take the buyout, won't he take the buyout, will he go to the Celtics, will he go to the moon, will he sing a song of sixpence, will he continue to complain about the Knicks' refusal to release him while still refusing to take a cut on his buyout, you've heard the gamut.

Well, we just might have the ending to this thing.

No, really. Wait. Come back. Hear us out.

As Tom Ziller pointed out over the weekend, rumblings of a three-way deal between the Knicks, Blazers and Clippers surfaced a few days ago. Exact details of the alleged trade were never clear, but it seemed to hinge on David Lee (and potentially Eddy Curry) heading to Portland, Marcus Camby returning to New York and, well, someone going to the Clippers.

Now that a couple of days have passed without movement, the trade appears to be dead in the water -- and if you believe the parties involved, it may not have ever been alive in the first place.

Cuttino Mobley officially announced his retirement at a press conference today due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a medical condition that results in an enlarged heart. He's known about the condition for a while (he signed a waiver releasing the Clippers of liability earlier this season) but it's become more and more serious and the Knicks were unable to find a specialist willing to clear him for action.

In hindsight, the trade is bittersweet. Not only was he playing for the Clippers before the trade, he was playing well, and he was likely in line to start for the Knicks. But as Newsday's Alan Hahn points out, had Mobley not been traded, he might not have realized just how far his condition had progressed until too late.

Conceivably, the trade could have saved him.

"I hope it did," team president Donnie Walsh said. "I really do. None of this is as important as somebody's life. None of it. Period. So I'm glad that we had a doctor that put him through tests to show that the risk is there."

How does Mobley's retirement affect the Knicks' bottomline? Because he's retiring for medical reasons, Mobley will get all of guaranteed money -- he's making $9.1 million this year and $9.8 million next.

In theory the Knicks could be granted a medical exception worth 50% of Mobley's salary to sign a replacement this year, and they might be eligible to remove Mobley's salary from the salary cap once he's sidelined for 12 months. Whether that actually happens, though, remains to be seen -- because they completed the trade after they learned he might not be able to play, it's up for debate whether the Knicks are even eligible for such relief.

The Dallas Mavericks seem to have found a winning formula: bench Jerry Stackhouse. The Mavs had a 3-7 record the day Stackhouse requested a trade. He hasn't played a single minute since, and the Mavs have won eight of nine games in his absence.

Knowing this, it's not a huge surprise the team has granted him permission to seek a trade elsewhere. At 34, he's not the player he once was, but he can still provide some scoring punch and has a palatable contract that expires in time for the summer of 2010. Hmm, who might be interested in a player like that?

Alan Hahn of Newsday connects the dots and suggests a match with the Knicks, who could send back Malik Rose's expiring deal in return. With a heart condition putting Cuttino Mobley's career in jeopardy and a nagging groin injury bothering Nate Robinson, the Knicks have been playing shorthanded.

Donnie Walsh certainly won't pull the trigger on a multiyear deal to fill a short-term need, but Stackhouse seems like the kind of player who could thrive in Mike D'Antoni's offense not to mention bring some veteran leadership and swagger to the court. The Knicks will be over the cap next year anyway, so losing whatever space Rose's expiring deal brings isn't that big of a deal. The real prize is the summer of 2010, and bringing Stackhouse on board wouldn't change that at all.

Stephon Marbury and the Knicks might still be haggling over the details, but there's little doubt that a divorce is coming soon. So what then? Is he really so poisonous that there's not a single team in the league willing to take a flyer on him?

I don't think so. Playing for one of the league's most dysfuctional franchises in the country's biggest media market can make anybody look bad. I'm not trying to absolve Marbury of fanning the flames, but there are a lot of players around the league who are just as much of a head case but manage to fly under the radar simply because they don't play in New York.

Plus, when he does hit the market, he'll almost certainly be on his best behavior in hopes of salvaging his reputation. And with the Knicks on the hook for most of his salary, he'll likely sign for a prorated share of the veteran's minimum. Despite all the controversy surrounding him the last few years, he'd be a low-risk gamble, especially on a team with strong locker room personalities willing to keep him in his place.

It's safe to say that the Stephon Marbury situation has become somewhat of a mess for the Knicks. After things came to a head with Marbury's alleged refusal to play and subsequent suspension, Donnie Walsh has finally decided to step in and try to resolve things with Marbury's representative on Monday.

According to ESPN's Chris Sheridan, Walsh expects to present several scenarios to Marbury and his representatives, and then proceed from there. Sheridan also gives us this little nugget that makes me wonder if Knicks' coach Mike D'Antoni blew this all by his lonesome:

It appears Walsh did not understand or was not adequately told the degree of mutual disdain that remained between D'Antoni and Marbury from their brief time together in Phoenix, and Walsh said he was unaware on opening night that D'Antoni did not plan to put Marbury into the game.

"I think everyone came in with good intentions, and it hasn't worked out. So we have to acknowledge that and talk about it," Walsh said.