Bleacher Report - NBA Atlantic

To Sign Allen Iverson or Not? That is the Question.

DMtShooter Five Tool Tool — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:00:00 -0500

There’s a lot of hullabaloo on the Intertubes and locally about why the Sixers should sign the newly available Allen Iverson. So let's break it down.

The Case For

1.) He'd fill some seats.

The Sixers have the second lowest attendance in the NBA; only the utterly terrible Memphis Grizzlies draw fewer people. This doesn't mean that the town has soured on basketball, but you can't give away Sixers' seats right now.

Elton Brand ain't filling the stands, and while Andre Iguodala and Thaddeus Young have talent, no one is stopping their world to go see them.

2) He'd win some games.

Iverson is, at this point, an insulted man playing for his legacy with his back against the wall. That's usually a great combination for his value, and even in the few games that he played in Memphis before auto-ejecting, he shot a high percentage.

3) He'd be interesting.

This site hasn't spent a word on the Sixers since the start of the regular season, and it's actually getting hard to find them on the cable channels, outside of the NBA cable package.

Even if the team doesn't win with him, Iverson remains compelling if only for the fact that there probably hasn't been a more genuinely emotional player in the league during his time.

4) He's not Willie Green or Royal Ivey, and Lou Williams is out.

Right now, the Sixers start Iguodala and Jrue Holiday, the 19 (!) year old first round pick from UCLA who is shooting 34.8 percent from the floor. Before Williams' injury, Holiday hadn't played more than 15 minutes in any game and that’s for a team that's 5-11.

And, um, Green and Ivey are terrible players who should not be in the NBA. Green especially, in that he's played an unconscionable amount of minutes for this team over the years, for no good reason at all.

5) You could make the playoffs with him.

At 5-11, the Sixers are three games out of the No. 8 slot (Chicago, 6-8) and that's important to this franchise. Especially in this economy, and who knows? You could catch lighting or injuries in a bottle.

This franchise is guilty of many things, but tanking isn't one of them.

6) He's motivated.

The entire Association has washed their hands of him. No one is calling. I'm just a wee bit excited, really, at seeing what an Enormously Dissed AI is capable of.

Aren't you?

The Case Against

1) He really wouldn't fill seats.

The history of pro hoops in Philadelphia is simple: If you have a good team, you sell tickets. If you don't, you don't.

Even 2001 AI is not getting this team to win a playoff series, and it's not as if the place was jumping in his last few days here.

We love him, but not unconditionally.

2) He probably isn't winning games.

Even at his peak, AI was a defensive problem with all of his value coming from gambling for steals. He still gets a couple a game, but you can absolutely murder him in the post, and he's not stopping anyone one-on-one.

Offensively, he gets his numbers and helps other people get to the glass, but he also dominates the ball and tends to limit the effectiveness of his teammates. It's rare that any perimeter superstar is a winner at age 34, and AI doesn't do anything to solve the Sixers' overlying problem over the last 15 years (high percentage three point shooting).

3) He's not all that interesting.

People remember the glory years of Iverson, especially in relation to the current yawn-a-thon. But the AI you are getting today looks a lot more like the 2005 and 2006 model, which didn't go to the playoffs or provide any terribly meaningful moment.

4) He'd slow, or prevent, the development of the young players.

If the Sixers are actually going to become a good team, they will only do it with remarkable development from the young players (Young, Maresse Speights, Williams, and Holiday).

Maybe these guys are bad basketball players with no real chance of developing into top-drawer talents; that's certainly the best odds, really. But those odds are still better than a high minutes, high volume speed guard leading them to glory in his mid 30s.

5) You could make the playoffs with him, and lose fast. The last time Iverson was on a team that won a playoff series? 2003. That's not changing this year, either.

6) Why would this be any different than his last three stops?

Dissing AI is not exactly a recent phenomenon, and both the Sixers and Nuggets got a lot better in the short term after getting rid of him. There is an ever-increasing amount of evidence that you just can't win with him.

As a blogger and unrepentant Iverson fan, I can't say that I'd hate the signing.

Ideally, he gives them a boost for a couple of months, gets them back to near a .500 record, and makes them better by allowing Holiday and Williams to learn how to draw contact and get to the line.

It's also hard to see how 70 more games of this would do much good.

Finally, however, I wind up on the side of a signing, for just one reason: Iverson is, for good or ill, one of the best players in the history of the franchise; he is also the favorite player in franchise history for a large portion of the fan base.

When you have a player like that, and the end of his career goes badly, it doesn't just demean his legacy. It also takes down the laundry.

One of my favorite players in the history of team was shooting guard Andrew Toney, a key part of the '83 Moses championship.

He had the quickest first step in the league, routinely devoured Danny Ainge and Celtics in ways that delivered orgasmic levels of happiness, and had a shooting style that looked like a cobra strike.

His career was cut short by foot issues and fights with the team's medical staff, and what should have been a borderline Hall of Fame career was just gone, lost in fading memories, just another set of numbers on a historical record.

AI's impact—the cultural shift, the infamous media moments, the cornrows, the jersey sales—ensures that won't happen to the same extent.

But it does happen.

An Iverson return, and maybe a false spring of wins and playoff contention, might stop that. And what it costs, given that we're talking about a year that's already looking lost, just doesn't matter that much.

I'd do the deal.

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Pepsi Center Is Melo's Center as Anthony Drops 50 On Knicks

Ryan Maloney — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:58:00 -0500

It had been two years, 11 months, and 12 days since Carmelo Anthony landed an uppercut to the chin of Mardy Collins before 19,763 patrons at Madison Square Garden in a 2006 game between Anthony's Denver Nuggets and Collins' New York Knicks.

The incident still serves as a shiny black eye on an otherwise brilliant seven-year professional career for Anthony. But for the former Syracuse Orange forward, Friday night's game may have served as a metaphorical steak over a bruised peeper.

Anthony lit up that same Knicks franchise with a career-high 50 points as Denver outlasted the Knicks 108-105 in Denver.

His first of two successful free throws with 16 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter wound up being the decisive tally as it gave the Nuggets a 126-121 lead. His second foul gave him 50 points in a game for the first time in his NBA career.

"They might have been the two toughest free throws I've shot in a while," Anthony told reporters after the game. "We've got the game on the line, 50, you're right there and you want to get it. If I didn't say I wanted to get it, I'd be lying to you. I'm right there. But most importantly they were two big free throws."

The fact that Anthony made 15-of-16 at the charity stripe is a small miracle for any player who has ever donned the orange and blue of Syracuse, a program notorious for their struggles at the line. But Anthony seemed to be dialed in from all spots on the floor, hitting 17-of-28 shot attempts.

New York's Al Harrington also turned in a memorable performance, dropping in 41 points to fall one short of his career best. But after the game, even he had to marvel at 'Melo.

"He's got the total package right now," Harrington said. "He's hitting 3s, he's hitting mid-range, he can get to the free throw line whenever he wants.

"When you play against a guy that's going like that, there's nothing you can really do. I think our guys did a pretty good job, because if they didn't, he would have had 70."

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Why Is Allen Iverson Retiring?

Bobby Lewis — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:55:33 -0500

NBA fans know that Allen Iverson has had his problems in the NBA.

We've all heard the now infamous "Practice" rant.

His time in Detroit was a complete debacle.

If you blinked, you probably missed his stint with the Memphis Grizzlies.

But with all of his problems, was there ever a player on the court with Allen Iverson—playing with or against him—who outworked him?

This man has been vilified by GMs around the league, some fans, and some of the media, but there is nobody on this planet that can tell me he couldn't improve an NBA team right now.

He got to the NBA Finals with a supporting cast that included Eric Snow, Aaron McKie, Tyrone Hill, Matt Geiger, Todd McCullough, and Theo Ratliff. Nothing against those guys because they all played incredibly hard, but none of them ever set the world on fire.

The general rule of thumb in the NBA is that you need two stars to challenge for a title. Iverson was the only guy on that team who could create his own shot. Nobody else on that squad inspired any fear on the offensive side of the ball.

Obviously Iverson has taken a ton of punishment since then and he's not the same player, but the fact is that he was still putting up 26 points a game two years ago.

So why has Allen Iverson made the decision to retire?

I would guess that it's simply a pride move. After everything that happened with the Pistons, GMs didn't want anything to do with him. When the Memphis Grizzlies are your only option, there is a problem. No one thought the Grizzlies marriage was going to work out anyway.

However, too many of the NBA higher-ups are judging what Allen Iverson can do on the court on what happened in Detroit.

People have put the blame solely on Iverson for what happened in Detroit, when the real culprit was Joe Dumars. Dumars has a great mind for basketball, but he should not get a pass for this move.

Iverson was never a good fit there and Dumars knew it. He was brought in strictly because his contract was expiring and Dumars was trying to clear space for LeBron James.

Joe Dumars, not Allen Iverson, made the decision to promote Michael Curry to head coach when Curry was clearly in over his head and had no idea how to juggle the services of Iverson, Richard Hamilton, and Rodney Stuckey.

The main gripe against Allen Iverson has been his reluctance to come off of the bench. That's certainly legitimate, but the issue should be why he is being asked to take a reduced role.

Would anyone really take Stuckey or Hamilton over The Answer right now?

That's the point. For whatever reason, some organizations think he is just a role player now. I have struggled for a while to understand why that is. Again, he averaged about 26 points in the 2007-08 season.

We also need to remember that, while he has been killed for not wanting to come off of the bench, he has been on a bad team every time he's been told he's not going to start.

Why should he come off of the bench for a bad team when that team would be better served to start him? It makes no sense to constantly bring him off the bench when you are lucky to win 30 games in a season.

There is no doubt in my mind that he would gladly come off of the bench right now if he got a call from any of the elite teams in the league (San Antonio, Cleveland, Boston, Orlando, or the Lakers).

There are only five teams that have a legit shot to make it to the Finals right now. Everybody else is playing catch-up.

If he were to sign with Houston, are they not a better team? How about the Knicks, who have already passed on him?

If he should happen to go to Miami with D-Wade, Jermaine O'Neal, and Michael Beasley, does he not make them a threat to the top teams in the league?

How about the Bobcats, who seem like an almost perfect fit?

It is just ridiculous that a first ballot Hall of Famer is sitting around with nothing to do and no team has pursued him.

So is Allen Iverson really done? I doubt it. Judging from how he worded his statement , I'm sure that he wouldn't hesitate to come back if he felt it was the right situation. For now, I'll look at this similarly to how I look at boxer's retirements.

All Iverson wants to do is win. You can say whatever you want about him, but every time he plays, he is the hardest working man on the floor.

Isn't that all NBA teams want out of a player?

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Blazers vs. Nets, 7 P.M. CSN

Busta Bucket — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:24:22 -0500

The Blazers take on the 0-14 New Jersey Nets tonight at the Rose Garden. To be fair, the Nets have been without their star PG Devin Harris for most of the season and Courtney Lee (just returned from a groin injury) and Yi Jianlian (out with bad knee) have played a total of 10 games. Still though, they play in the East where they should get some win-able games here and there. The Blazers still need to take this game seriously, because you don't want to be the team that gives a win-less team their first W.

New Jersey Nets coverage at Nets Are Scorching and the Nets Daily Blog.

Blazers

Analysis

Nets

Blake continues to get open looks from beyond the arc. But overall has been very inconsistent. Andre Miller responded to being sent to the second unit with a tremendous game Monday against the Bulls. Sixteen points, five assists and a plus-30 leading the bench mob works for me.

If Devin Harris were at full strength and Rafer Alston was the back-up PG bringing the spark off the bench, then the Nets might get the edge here, but that is not the case. Harris has only played four games since coming back from injury, and is still coming off the bench as he gets back up to speed. Rafer meanwhile has been shooting 33 percent for the season in Harris' absence. Harris' return should lead to a little less Skip-To-My-Lou, which is a good thing for the Nets.

Roy is getting comfortable again at his natural "Point-Shooting guard" position, meaning he should be a happy camper. All season Roy has seemed bothered by the lineup changes and the overall play of the team. I don't care if he's been using his star status to get what he wants. I just want him to get "right". We're do for a monster game from our all-star.

Chris Douglas-Roberts has been filling in admirably while Courtney Lee was out with injury. CDR is a Most Improved Player candidate averaging 18 ppg (up from five ppg in his rookie year). Basically he is the only positive storyline so far this season for the win-less Nets.

Martell Webster the starter is a better player than Trenton Hassell. Since re-joining the starting lineup Webster has had a great game and a sub-par game, but the main thing is he's getting shots and his teammates are looking for him. An active Martell, combined with the minutes that Roy and Rudy get here, gives Portland the edge at this position.

LaMarcus is coming off one of his best all-around games of the season. LA has 24 pts, 13 rebounds, a block, and his first 3-pointer of the year in Monday's game versus Chicago. Josh Boone will not be able to handle the L-Train in this match-up, especially coming off a game last night against Denver's bigs. Another double-double is in Aldridge's future tonight.

I'm going to throw New Jersey a bone here. Brook Lopez gets the edge at the center position. Lopez is a rising star in the East averaging 17 ppg and nine rpg, while leading the NBA in blocked shots. He also had good games against us last year (22 points and 17 points). That, and I don't want to get too high on Oden after the career game that he had on Monday. The match-up against Lopez will be a good gauge of the progress and consistency that Oden has been showing off over the last few games. I hope we see the same confident, beast of a player that we saw last game.

Overall Winner:

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