Roundtable: Steph to a contender?

Stephon Marbury hasn't appeared in an NBA game since the preseason. Jarrett Baker/Getty Images Related Links FOR THE RECORD: Do the Celtics need Marbury? Celtics open to adding Marbury if he leaves Knicks

SI.com NBA writers analyze the latest news and address hot topics from around the league each week. (All stats and records are through Monday's games.)

1. You're the general manager of a title-contending team that needs more depth in the backcourt. Would you sign Stephon Marbury if he ends up parting ways with the Knicks?

Ian Thomsen: Yes, under one condition: He needs to talk the new team into signing him as a sixth or seventh man.

If you need to talk him into coming off the bench, if you find yourself in that awkward position of persuading him to do something that's in his best interests, then forget it. Marbury has to recognize on his own that he'll be 32 next month, he's never won a playoff series and he's being offered a chance to contribute to something bigger than himself. If he can't see what is obvious to everyone else, then he'll continue to be more trouble than he's worth.

But if he sees how everybody -- his team as well as himself -- will win if he microwaves for 15-20 minutes off the bench, if he refers to playing for a contender as an "opportunity'' rather than a "sacrifice,'' then a contender with reserve backcourt and scoring needs (the Celtics, for instance) should gamble on signing him.

Chris Mannix: Marbury is like the bad soap opera that the network inexplicably refuses to cancel: The storylines don't get any better but people continue to talk about it. To answer the question: Absolutely not. Consider Marbury's track record. He leaves New Jersey and the Nets get better. He leaves Phoenix and the Suns get better. And I don't think there is any question that over the next few years, after Marbury becomes a distant memory, the Knicks are going to get better.

With Marbury, the risk far exceeds the potential reward. Say he signs with Boston. How long do you think it will be before Marbury starts planting stories in the press that he should be starting ahead of Rajon Rondo? Weeks?

Let Marbury play for a team where his points per game will exceed the team's win totals. It's what he wants. If Marbury really wanted to play for a winner, he never would have asked out of Minnesota.

Jack McCallum: Let me count the ways I would say no. P.J. Brown (39) and Gary Payton (35) were much older than the 31-year-old Marbury when they signed on to help the Celtics and the Heat, respectively, win titles in 2008 and '06. But they were willing to be bit players. Marbury is not. For all his chafing about wanting to do the right thing, he still sees himself as a Grade-A player who will want big-time PT. The surest thing about Marbury is that he brings an atmosphere of high-grade gloom to any locker room.

Steve Aschburner: Yes, but with enough provisos, oversight and contractual protections to make Guy Ritchie's prenup with Madonna look like a handshake arrangement. Some see Marbury as the anti-winner, a player who -- and this can be documented -- makes his teams better by leaving them, and wonder why any GM in his right mind would get within an area code of the guy. Maybe I'm a softie: I vividly recall the two-plus seasons Marbury and Kevin Garnett played together in Minnesota and I saw -- saw, not just imagined -- the future of that team, collecting NBA titles had they stayed together. Marbury still has enough talent to win you a few games that could help immensely with playoff positioning and, if he were to last long enough, could make a difference in some best-of-seven series.

On an unexpected visit to Minneapolis' Target Center the other night, Marbury said two words that could maybe make this work: salary year. Getting paid more than $20 million not to play doesn't register as much with this guy as the contract he might be able to land for next season and that -- plus a desire to prove the Knicks wrong, and the short leash a new team would attach to him -- could be enough to get useful minutes out of him. It worked with Tim Thomas for a partial season a few years back in Phoenix.

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2. The Rockets (21-14) have struggled all season with injuries to key players, and now Tracy McGrady is being criticized for a lack of effort. How would you evaluate Houston's chances of being a significant factor in the Western Conference?

Ian Thomsen: It was always a longshot based on the health of McGrady and Yao Ming as well as their chemistry with Ron Artest. But it's too soon to give up on them. They're only 2½ games out of second place in the West, and if McGrady's knee has improved after the All-Star break, they're going to be a fright in a seven-game series with Artest guarding anyone from Kobe Bryant to Manu Ginobili to Carmelo Anthony to David West. I know their track record stinks, but these Rockets could yet become one of those teams that creates more problems in the playoffs than during the regular season because they defend and they have a chance to break down anyone and win the matchups -- if they're healthy.

Jack McCallum: Is there anyone -- repeat, anyone! -- who has done less with more than McGrady? Every year I torch T-Mac (although last season I ended up taking some of it back when the Rockets got hot), but it's not like it's a major surprise that he's being criticized for lack of effort. All that is to say: If by "significant factor" you mean "championship contender," the answer is no.

Chris Mannix: Poor Yao. He busts his butt to come back early from a tricky foot surgery to play for his national team last summer, then works hard in training camp and re-establishes himself as one of the league's dominant centers ... and then has to watch as McGrady, his running buddy, ostensibly throws in the towel.

Certainly injuries (particularly Shane Battier's) have prevented the revamped Rockets from developing on-the-court chemistry. But there is no excuse for a lack of effort, which the Rockets have been getting from McGrady recently. (It's mind-boggling, too, that a team with this much talent and one coached by an offensive genius in Rick Adelman is scoring 97.0 points per game, the 18th-highest average in the league.) In a conference with eight other strong playoff contenders, McGrady and the Rockets don't have the luxury of coasting.

Steve Aschburner: The Rockets seem to have everything you'd need to chase a ring. In terms of talent and roles, coach Adelman can check all the boxes: uniquely skilled center (Yao), all-NBA creator on the wing (McGrady), banger with a little finesse (Luis Scola), lockdown defender with benefits (Artest), glue guy (Battier), point guard by committee and enough youth and versatility off the bench. But they aren't championship-hardened, and Houston's best players don't throw off much natural leadership. That's a rap shared, I think, by Adelman from his Portland and, particularly, Sacramento days. Hard to shake the image of Houston as anything but a too-early playoff loser.