Joe Dumars Makes Mistake Trading for Allen Iverson

When the Denver Nuggets parted ways with former GM Kiki Vandeweghe a couple of years ago, many wondered what direction the Nuggets would go in after dumping a talent evaluator who had elevated Denver from a doormat to a perennial playoff team.

Meanwhile, in Detroit, the Pistons' front office was ironclad.

Joe Dumars had already won Executive of the Year honors once, and many thought he was destined for more. Like the Lions on Thanksgiving Day, the Pistons were a lock in the Eastern Conference Finals, having been a staple in the late-May event for an overwhelming majority of the decade—seven consecutive years, to be exact.

In the Rocky Mountains, the Nuggets were a staple to be unceremoniously dumped in the first round, gone and forgotten far before the Pistons reached their trademark round of the postseason.

That's why the manner in which Denver's front office took Dumars to the woodshed in trading Allen Iverson for Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess seems ever the more baffling.

When Dumars fired head coach Flip Saunders at season's end, it was a good thing for Detroit. Saunders' teams have always shown a propensity to underachieve when the going gets tough deep in the playoffs.

Seven straight first-round losses in Minnesota and three straight losses in the Eastern Conference Finals with Detroit—including two to teams with inferior records—don't lie. Saunders has a decade-long track record of being an underachiever.

But instead of letting new head coach Michael Curry take over the reigns for a roster that is clearly worthy of winning the franchise's fourth Larry O'Brien trophy, Dumars has planned to tinker around by adding star power and the very definition of a shoot-first point guard to a group built on the team concept.

No group in the NBA over the past several seasons has underlined the definition of team basketball more than the Pistons, and this is definitely a step in the right direction if Dumars' goal is to blow all that to smithereens.

Sure, AI is only a year older than Billups, both in terms of actual age and tenure. It's not like the Pistons are mortgaging the future for a 33-year-old combo guard on his last legs.

But Billups has been the embodiment of the Pistons—at least since Ben Wallace was let go. He plays tough-as-nails defense on the perimeter, takes pride in that part of his game, and always makes plays with and without the ball on offense to keep his team in the game at all times.

The same cannot be said for Iverson.

We heard for years how poor AI was struggling without a competent supporting cast in Philadelphia, much like we are hearing the same thing about LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers right now. The one year the Sixers made it to the Finals was when the roster was comprised of a bunch of role players who were retreads and journeymen.

Tyrone Hill, Aaron McKie, Eric Snow, and George Lynch scare absolutely no one, but yet AI was able to get it done that year.

Since then, the Sixers haven't even sniffed the Finals. Near the end of AI's tenure with the Sixers, the team was either finishing under .500 or backing into the playoffs only to be ushered out of the first round.

When Iverson got to Denver, it was supposed to be the energizer for both him and the Nuggets. AI had a competent supporting cast—so strong, in fact, that he could be viewed as a sidekick instead of the alpha dog with Carmelo Anthony's presence.

Along with Anthony, Kenyon Martin, and Marcus Camby, the Nuggets had four guys who had been top three picks in the NBA draft at one point. This was supposed to be the electrifying run-and-gun show to rival the Phoenix Suns—maybe even out-do them.

Instead, since landing Iverson, the Nuggets have been one of the bottom seeds in the West, being punished by San Antonio, 4-1, in the first round in '07 and swept, 4-0, by the Lakers in '08. That's a 1-8 playoff record.

A 33-year-old Allen Iverson is not going to get the Detroit Pistons where they want to go, and making such a big change at such a critical position for a roster that won 59 games last season isn't the wisest thing to do for Dumars.

As for Denver, it gives them a winner at the point guard position who is tested for the battles of the postseason. In a conference that includes Tony Parker, Chris Paul, Steve Nash, Deron Williams, and Jason Kidd, the presence of Billups, who played his college ball at the University of Colorado in nearby Boulder, will be enormous, especially on the defensive end.

And at least for this year, the Nuggets can legitimately compete with Utah in the Northwest Division. Denver will also be able to fend off the young up-and-coming Portland Trail Blazers, a group looking to make some noise in the West and looking to pass Denver in the Northwest as a start.

Despite his nickname, Iverson was never "the answer" when it came to tackling the problems posed by the elite point guards in the West. With Billups, guys like Chris Paul and Deron Williams know that they won't get to play the role of a hot knife through butter whenever they see "Denver" on the schedule.

The guards in the Eastern Conference, however, are starting to lick their chops.

Joe Dumars has proved a lot of critics wrong before. But this will be his biggest "I-told-you-so" moment yet if Iverson can somehow take the Pistons back to the Finals.

If not, it could very well be the last hurrah for the Detroit Pistons as we know them.