Here's Your "Answer": Critics Proven Right by Allen Iverson

Well, that was fun.

After a roller-coaster ride, the Allen Iverson experiment in Detroit appears to be over.

And Pistons fans could not be happier about it.

Today, Joe Dumars announced that Iverson would miss the rest of the season. 

“While he (Iverson) has played in our last three games, he is still feeling some discomfort and getting him physically ready to compete at the level he is accustomed to playing this late in the season does not seem possible at this point," Dumars told reporters in a written statement.

In other words, Iverson has become too much of a distraction to a team that is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time this decade.

Make no mistake about it, Iverson is being given an early release from his Pistons playing days.

This represents quite an emphatic ending to the "superstar" chapter of his career. 

After this latest season built on incident after incident of Iverson cementing his "me-first" persona, it is extremely unlikely that he will be given an opportunity to start for a contending team.

Furthermore, it is hard to imagine, given the current economic climate, that any team will be able to pony up the type of money that Iverson thinks that he is worth.

Sadly, there is an outside chance that Iverson may have played his last game as a professional in this country.

This may seem melodramatic, but Iverson has said outright that he would rather retire than face another season as a sixth man.

Of the teams that will have cap room, most are loaded with young players.  Iverson is not your typical mentor.  In fact, his legacy is one that should likely not be emulated.

His famous rant about practice is the last thing a coach wants a young player to hear, let alone imitate.

His style of play, one that requires him to be the first through fifth option on offense will also not play on a contender.  Even in his prime, Iverson was only able to get close to winning once with teams built around him, and he is no longer in his prime. 

Sure, Iverson has a lot of game left in him.  But he no longer has the kind of game that he thinks he has.  And no coach is going to hand over the keys to his franchise after the way that Iverson played for one of the classiest teams in basketball.

Let's review his time in Detroit.

After acquiring Iverson, the Pistons trademark defense, built on personal accountability as well as strong help side defense, took a big hit.  Iverson is too small to guard shooting guards, and too undisciplined to play point guards. 

In order to play Iverson at his natural shooting guard position, Rip Hamilton needed to shift over to the small forward position.  This forced Tayshaun Prince into the power forward spot, leaving the Pistons completely vulnerable to larger teams.

While teams were exploiting the Detroit defense like never before, they were easily able to stop the Pistons on offense.  The motion offense that Detroit employed became a series of one-on-one matchups that typically started with one of the back court players attempting to penetrate, and usually ended with a turnover. 

Additionally, Iverson showed his disdain for practice yet again, missing a mandatory practice during the holiday season, drawing a suspension as well as the front office's ire.

More importantly, the Pistons were not winning.

Once it finally became apparent that the small ball experiment would no longer work, the Pistons moved Hamilton to the bench in order to avoid damaging Iverson's ego.

To his credit, Hamilton handled his demotion with class.  However, it was obvious that the wrong man was sent to the bench.  Iverson's style of play requires him to be the focal point of the offense, which does not mesh with the balanced offense that the Pistons regulars enjoy. 

Iverson was much more suited to coming off the bench, and running an offense composed of role players that are young and athletic.  Iverson would be matched up against second units, and he could have dominated.

But alas, Hamilton and his mid-range game was forced out.

As a result, everyone seemed miserable.  More importantly, the Pistons were not winning.

Finally, the Pistons decided to end the madness and re-insert Hamilton into the starting lineup, moving Iverson to the bench.

Strangely, this coincided with a back injury that sidelined Iverson for an extended period of time.

The Iverson back injury turned into a soap opera in itself.  Reports surfaced that Iverson shrouded his injury in mystery, secretly seeking his own diagnosis without his team's knowledge. 

Noted strength and conditioning trainer Arnie Kander was left out of the loop regarding Iverson despite his past success with players such as Antonio McDyess.

Regardless, the whispers regarding the legitamacy of Iverson's injury reached a crescendo when on air personality Reggie Miller publicly questioned whether Iverson was using his injury to hold the Pistons' franchise hostage.

Serendipitously, Iverson suited up and began play just a week later, albeit from his new role on the bench.

Despite the fact that Iverson had told reporters that he would embrace his new role, he immediately questioned it once he began playing, telling anyone that would listen how miserable he was as a reserve.

That, apparently, was enough for Dumars. 

Some people may view this drawn conclusion as a pessimistic one.  Perhaps Dumars is doing this completely based on Iverson's injury. 

Anything is possible.

But given the mysterious nature of Iverson's injury and the fact that there are still a number of games to play this season and postseason, it seems odd that Dumars would be shutting Iverson down so abruptly. 

What Dumars is doing is removing the distraction.  He is acknowledging that the Iverson experiment did not work.  A trade that was made primarily for monetary reasons with the outside chance of giving the Pistons a new way to win in the short term essentially torpedoed the season for Detroit.

Think about what that means, not only for Detroit but for Iverson's legacy.  The addition of a future hall of famer destroyed the season for the Pistons, and in order to attempt to salvage the playoffs they need to annex him back to his home.

Dumars is saying that the best chance for his team to win is for the superstar to leave.

Dumars finally found his kryptonite.  He finally found a player that he could not bring on board to his way of basketball. 

How bizarre that it would be a player that Dumars himself has respected for years based on his toughness. 

Ironically, the addition of one of the toughest players in the league made Detroit soft. 

Ironically, the little scorer, so admired for his toughness and determination, could not overcome his own ego, and was admittedly not strong enough to accept his new role.

Ironically, Dumars caved on his modus operandi of building a team composed of team players in order to bring in a superstar (a sign of adapting to a league that seems poised to embrace stars above teams) only to see the worst squad on his watch.

So Iverson is done in Detroit, likely heading to either a last place team or (gulp) Europe, and the Pistons are forced to soldier on without him. 

And when Iverson shows up for his next job and claims to be willing to do whatever is asked of him, take a tip from the Pistons and try not to laugh out loud.