Stephon Marbury, amid his grateful charity of 10 million N95 masks gifted to New York, revealed this week that he gave a heads up to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver about the severity of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Marbury, the fourth-overall pick of the legendary 1996 draft class out of Georgia Tech, has turned his professional basketball career into a fantastical one in China after leaving the NBA. He eventually became a three-time CBA champion and now coach in east Asia.

Now, according to Marbury, the retired point guard communicated with Silver in early March warning of the impending public-health crisis prior to the league's shutdown.

Per  Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated:

“I sent [NBA commissioner] Adam Silver an email March 8. I said in the email, ‘You guys got to stop.’ I said, ‘This is not good. You got, like, 17,000, 18,000 people going to games and people don’t know if they’re infected or not. This could happen. One of the basketball players can get infected. Anything can happen,” Stephon Marbury shared.

“He was like, ‘Stephon, thank you for so much for sending me this email.’ My concern is for everybody. It’s bigger than basketball. You got guys getting sick and they can’t play. I mean, what’s the use? There is no point or no purpose. I think that it’s going to be a really big challenge for the [NBA] season to get going this year.”

With current information available, the coronavirus started in China and has since taken a huge toll on the over one-billion residents in the world's most populous country. The data right now shows the U.S. eclipsing China in individuals afflicted by COVID-19.

As for Adam Silver's action, he immediately suspended the NBA season after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert became the first player detected to have contracted the deadly disease.