(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-11-16 09:35

NEW YORK - The New York Knicks have been plunged into crisis again after guard Stephon Marbury left the team on Tuesday during their road trip to Phoenix after a row with coach Isiah Thomas.

New York Knicks guard Stephon Marbury reacts after a timeout call during the second half against the Dallas Mavericks in their NBA basketball game at Madison Square Garden in New York March 20, 2007. [Agencies]

Marbury bolted before the game against the Suns after being told on the flight there from New York that he would be sitting out in favor of second-year guard Mardy Collins.

Thomas, who cost the Knicks $11.6 million in a sexual harassment judgment earlier this year, told reporters the Marbury situation was an "in-house matter" and that the guard would be welcome to return.

"It's Warbury!" shouted Wednesday's back page of the Daily News, which reported that Marbury threatened to tell tales on Thomas after being told he was out of the starting lineup.

"Isiah has to start me," Marbury said, according to the Daily News, quoting a source close to the team. "I've got so much (stuff) on Isiah and he knows it. He thinks he can (get) me. But I'll (get) him first. You have no idea what I know."

Marbury, 30, text-messaged members of the media saying he had received permission to leave the team. He had been averaging 15.2 points a game and 6.8 assists.

The Knicks dipped to 2-5 on the season after falling 113-102 to the Suns.

Collins, the Knicks' first-round draft pick in 2006 out of Temple University, started and lasted just six minutes before leaving the game with a sprained right foot.

The Knicks, once held as models of team play when Walt "Clyde" Frazier, Bill Bradley and Willis Reed won championships in the 1970s and known as hard-nosed competitors in the 1990s led by Patrick Ewing, have been struggling in recent years.

Thomas, hired as president and general manager of the slumping club in December 2003, acquired Marbury a month later in a 10-player deal with Phoenix.

The Knicks made the playoffs that season but were swept by the New Jersey Nets in the first round and have not returned to the postseason since.

They hit their nadir in 2005-2006 when Larry Brown, a Hall of Fame coach hired by Thomas, steered them to a miserable 23-59 record, matching the franchise record for most losses.

Club owner James Dolan fired Brown, who had four years and $40 million left on a five-year deal, and installed Thomas as coach with an ultimatum of proving the team he had assembled was better than that.

Thomas saved his job by piloting the Knicks to a 33-49 record in the 61st season for the club, a charter member of the National Basketball Association.