Over a week ago, someone who may or may not be this blog’s editor tastelessly suggested that an Isiah Thomas suicide attempt was a hell of a way to get out of living next door to Stephon Marbury, whose inactive status with the New York Knicks remains a major talking point around the league. Conversely, were Marbury to leave New York, it’s members of the fourth estate who might become clinically depressed at being denied access to the point guard’s wit and wisdom.  With Charlotte visiting the Garden tonight, Newsday’s Roderick Boone had the good fortune to ask Marbury about the Bobcats’ much traveled head coach.

“Looking back at the last two years, I kind of liked Larry Brown,” Marbury said yesterday. “I’m like, man, I wish this guy was here to drill me now.”

Reporters caught up with Brown at Bobcats practice in Charlotte, N.C., yesterday. “I hope New York is a good franchise – our league needs it [to be]. They have two unbelievably capable people and I don’t want to dwell in the past. I need to focus on what I need to do to get better, get us better. I’ve tried to do that over the last two years, not dwell on what happened. That’s past.”