Stephon Marbury to Play in China

Former NBA star Stephon Marbury has accepted an offer to play basketball in China for the rest of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) season.

Marbury, who will make $25,000 per month playing in the CBA, has joined the Shanxi Zhongyu Brave Dragons, a struggling team with a record of 3 wins and 10 losses thus far this season.

Stephon Marbury to Play in China

The Brave Dragons play in Taiyuan, a city in Shanxi province, about 150 southwest of Beijing.

According to an executive of Shanxi Zhongyu, Marbury accepted the offer because he hopes that playing in China will give him a platform to sell his line of shoes and clothing there.

Marbury has not played in the NBA this season, after playing for the Boston Celtics at the end of the the 2008-2009 season, when he averaged just 3.8 points per game.

Apparently, Marbury had been expecting NBA teams to make offers of $8 million to $10 million during the off-season. When those offers didn’t materialize, several European teams courted him this summer. In addition, an Israeli team, Maccabi Tel-Aviv, considered making an offer to Marbury as well. When none of these things panned out, Marbury decided to take his show on the road and give the massive Chinese market a try.