Apparently, Allen Iverson feels that Memphis is the best destination for him in the twilight of his glorious career. With all due respect to one of my favorite players of the last decade, I politely disagree.
It has nothing to do with Iverson, but a lot to do with the Grizzlies. Their roster now contains four guys who absolutely need the ball in their hands as much as possible to have an impact on the game. Rudy Gay, O.J. Mayo, Zach Randolph, and, now, Iverson will all be trading possessions in which they get to take the shots or run the plays set up for them. It's going to be a weird, synergy-less, one-on-five-type season in Memphis. I realize that the Grizzlies are, reportedly, the only team to make a solid offer to Iverson, but I was hoping that if he held on a little longer and waited until we got closer to Opening Night in late October, he'd be able to land a solid deal elsewhere.
Miami and Charlotte were two other teams that were reportedly interested, and I think both would have been better fits. Sure, Miami has Dwyane Wade, who likes to dominate the ball and make plays on his own. But the Heat lack another scorer and Wade has shown that he's able to share the ball effectively and pick his spots to take over. Adding Iverson would have been good for Wade, because he'd have a complementary scorer instead of being relied on to score 30 per night. Currently, if Wade scores less than 20, Miami loses. Had they added Iverson, Wade may score 17, but Iverson could pour in 31 and the Heat would be a lot better off. Again, I understand that Memphis had a better offer than Miami (who, supposedly, was only offering $2 million), but I think that situation would have favored Iverson, a guy who doesn't need the money.
Charlotte also would have been a good bet. Despite trading for Tyson Chandler for reasons unknown, the Bobcats have a solid nucleus with Raymond Felton (assuming he's eventually signed), Boris Diaw, and Gerald Wallace. Their glaring weakness in the past couple seasons has been a clutch scorer on the perimeter. Wallace is terrific, but he's not quite the next-level scoring option that Charlotte desperately needs. Iverson is. Giving him the ball in crunch time is a much better option than giving it to Felton or Wallace, both of whom aren't the scorers that Iverson is, obviously. The Larry Brown angle has been played out, but I honestly think that Iverson would have been much more likely to play hard for Brown than Lionel Hollins, who is the Grizzlies' interim-turned-head coach. I'm not saying Iverson will dog it in Memphis, because he never dogs it when he plays, but there would have been an extra spark in Charlotte.
At the end of the day, I'm just glad Iverson is back in the league. The Detroit situation was a fiasco and he shouldered entirely too much of that blame. The team was terrible and didn't even play well once Iverson "hurt his back" and was unable to finish the season. Rip Hamilton isn't exactly young anymore, either, so looking Iverson as the reason that situation didn't work out is unfair. There's a reason Detroit cleaned house in the offseason; they were bad on a number of levels.
AI is one of my favorite players and I'm looking forward to see him fill it up time and time again this season. I just wish he'd waited for a better situation than forcing a marriage with a team that appears to be going nowhere and won't be able to use his abilities as well as another team could have.
~~ Lank
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