There is an ‘I’ in Iverson. AI needs to quit now before he really tarnishes his ‘legacy’.

At this point, Iverson needs an IV in the ER SON
he’s done

OT:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/The-top-10-rebounders-of-the-last-decade;_ylt=ApfTHcVo7cJFt4jpoJz1zGe8vLYF?urn=nba,189290

Ben Wallace ranked #1 rebounder of the decade.

On Topic:

I doubt anyone who actually watches basketball and understands what the Pistons organization is all about will do anything but laugh at his manager’s comments. We’re now hearing him the same thing about winning that we did when he arrived here a year ago. He’ll be pouting as the losses start mounting in Memphis and probably be inactive or traded by the deadline.

The basketball gods are smiling upon you Iverson. :)

Good read. I had completely forgotten he got jersey #1.

I think this part sums it up perfectly:

Of course, it’s one thing to talk for the team and another altogether to lead it.

Iverson – there’s a reason his last name starts with “I”

That’s why I Heisel in Memphis should be banned from owning a team. he’s more interested in money – at any expense – than trying to put out a winner. It will be sweet revenge watching that team implode.

RE: AI. I didn’t even read this post or any of the articles about it. No need to waste my time. AI is gone. We’ve got a new roster to root for.

RE: Jordan. I read a couple articles on his speech. Sounds like it gave real insight into how emotionally fucked up you have to be to be motivated to acheive greatness.

RE: Michigan game. Was in Toronto so I missed it. But, that Tate Garcia touchdown run was damn impressive as was that throw on the dropped would be TD pass. If you could get me to ever use the word “moxie” in a sentence…

RE: Federer’s shot. Wow.

RE: ESPNBoston.com. Are f’n kidding me?

Matt, this is a really good article, very well-written. You eloquently remind Piston fans — and fans of the game in general — why AI’s latest line is pure BS.

Iverson is what he is: entertaining to watch so long as you don’t have a genuine rooting interest in the team he represents. He’s a peculiar enigma: a legitimate NBA superstar but a fraud as a team cornerstone.

What if Allen Iverson isn’t even a legit superstar, though? What if both Chauncey Billups and Isiah Thomas are/were both better than AI ever has been?

What makes an NBA superstar, anyway? I think that’s a pretty abused term, especially if we apply it to the likes of Iverson.

OT RE: the rebounding list. Those top ten lists naturally spawn a whole bunch of “BUT WHAT ABOUT…?” comments. Here’s the best:

“11. Posted by VincentS Mon Sep 14, 2009 11:32 am EDT

no boozer?"

Nice post Matt! The 1st few months will be fine in Memphis for AI. However once AI starts to let Mike Conley Jr have in practice and the losses start to add up the problem will start. Ego is a bad thing!

talk about lies? who faked a back injury during the last few weeks of the season just because he does not want to start from the bench? who mentioned that he will do anything to commit to winning? c’mon AI. if detroit lied, why are you saying it just now? but good luck on your new team. hope they hired you because of your “talent” not the tickets you can sell.

I bet Conley is sharpening his knives at the thought of playing Iverson in practice. He’ll want nothing more than to destroy him.

We all know how this is going to end in some form or fashion. The thing is, OJ Mayo needs the ball in his hands just as much as AI does. Good luck Lionel. You’re going to need it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXzO0944PC0

ai is a lot screwy in the head. but i am way more glad that curry is gone. it is not ai’s fault that " Curry continued to bend over backwards to appease Iverson ". it is curry’s fault for that. i thank god curry is gone regularly. what an unexpected gift his firing was. and after reading matt’s article i give thanks again.

I’m happy their both gone.

WOW. JUST GOOOOOOOOO AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

Excellent article Matt. I did not understand him talking to the media at the podium. You really have to wonder what Joe was thinking. Joe obviously felt that AI was going to help the team due to the fact that they seems to cater to his every wish. I thought it was a slap in the face to Chauncey and the rest of the team when he was given #1. Chauncey must have ticked Joe off.

In other news… Yahoo sports has BG ranked #3 in the top ten 6th man of the decade list

Great writeup! This article is nothing but the truth about Iverson.

I am happy that both of them have gone. We came to know the truth about Iverson from this article… Good!

According to the Grizzly team site 70% of voters believe the addition of AI will lead to a playoff appearance….

Off-Topic: The Spurs are going to sign Curtis Jerrells?

Didn’t we or was that never official? I knew it was a camp invite and he was a long shot…

Basketbawful has a pretty funny post on AI.

scntfc: If you were a grizzlies fan, wouldn’t you vote basically for anything at this point?

If I was a Grizzlies fan and didn’t follow Iverson closely, I’d be elated. But you have to be blind to the facts to like Iverson in Memphis.. Look at what he did last year, and equally as important- He only signed with you because Memphis was the only team to give him a contract. He just looks pretty bad right now.

For Insiders, ESPN published their NBA Offseason Buzz: Detroit Pistons, where Hollinger/Bucher discuss players who are trending up and down.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/news/story?id=4475771

For non-insiders, i.e. the people wiser than myself who didn’t once pay ESPN for news I can get elsewhere, the article basically says this:

stuckey is gonna get better.
rip is gonna get worse.
rip’s extension was dumb, they should trade him.
ben gordon is good on offense, needs to work on defense and passing. also, he’s short.

stunning analysis by hollinger and bucher.

Must be the most exciting time for the Grizzlies since they drafted Steve Francis…

Is it just me or is this off season just dragging along? I find myself scouring the net looking for anything insightful related to basketball and/or the pistons that isn’t just fluff and having a hard time finding it. I was thrilled to find DBB.

Out of all the espn guys, I kinda like Mark Stein and maybe Chad Ford every now and then. I can’t stand Hollinger. He was so in love with the Suns and used every stat he could to make them the team to beat every freaking year, except that they never played defense! Now I wonder if he’ll change his tone with the Pistons if they start playing “more exciting” basketball.

Ernie Harwell appears for the final time at the Park tonight, the estimate is that he has 3 months to live. Think about going out there and and screaming til you’re hoarse. I’m going to.

MP: thank you for sharing that groundbreaking journalistic awesomeness from “insider”

Nice behind-the-scenes report – I hadn’t heard all this before.

Just a niggling point, but I don’t think being a superstart yet not a cornerstone makes him particularly enigmatic. There are lots of great players that aren’t great leaders. In fact, I’d say there are far fewer good leaders than there are great players.

@ MBSC

The chances of the Grizz making the playoffs are akin to the Stones making the ECF. I would be all for it. but being realistic, it is not an expectation of mine.

I guess I should mention that 7100 people answered the poll. I mean the polls around here usually it’s a good one if we get 500 to answer.

@ Rami

I share the sentiments. maybe because so much of what is coming is an unknown, that most of us are more anxious than usual. at least I am.

Yeah, I’m anxious to start watching some basketball; even preseason. Even if we suck this year (not that I think we will), there’s some general optimism due to the youth and trade bait that we have. If Rip is our worst contract, then bravo to JoeD! You’re right, this season is a big unknown and everyone wants to see the new look stones!

I can’t stand Hollinger. He was so in love with the Suns and used every stat he could to make them the team to beat every freaking year, except that they never played defense! Now I wonder if he’ll change his tone with the Pistons if they start playing "more exciting" basketball.

Totally. While I like Hollinger, I never agreed with that. It’s easy for him to argue for Phoenix statistically, because his PER metric doesn’t reflect defense. They score a ton, nash steals well and amare blocks well. But their terrible defense isn’t reflected there. It’s almost like his passion for Phoenix showed just how weak his whole system is.

(that said, I think PER is useful as a 10,000 ft. bird’s-eye view of player evaluation. it’s a good start for making a statistical case)

Interesting article from realgm on AI in Detroit last year.

http://www.realgm.com/src_feature_pieces/820/20090914/iverson/s_reality/

It’s hard to disagree with a lot of what it says but comes very close to defending Iverson’s behaviour. And if I’m not mistaken I think the author quite possibly believes that AI is sincere in his intention to win in Memphis.

I find it difficult to buy into that. This year for Iverson is nothing more than a stage for the guy to show he still has ability. There’s no way the dude wants to end his career a Grizzly.

That said you think he would have done that last season when he in a contract year.

Well if AI made 20M last year and had the attitude he did, just wait until shit blows up this year and he’s making 3M (??).

10 to 1 Memphis doesn’t schedule practice on Thanksgiving Day. Any takers?

Rami: Agreed. I’m basically counting down hours till training camp opens.

As for ESPN – I like Ford, Stein I can take – Hollinger I leave.

i can’t wait for the season to start. i think its only 19 days til preseason.

im hoping to see will bynum cross-over iverson in the season opener. i will put that on my wall if it happens.

I disagree that Hollinger was favoring the Suns. Yes, PER overrated the individual players because it didn’t include defense, but a lot of the Suns teams had decent defense. If you looked at the team level, pace-adjusted naturally, the Suns had a great point differential. They did give up a ton of points, but that was because of their fast pace.

Obviously they had some injuries that hurt in the playoffs, but I think also the nature of playoff games negated some of the advantages of Phoenix’s fast pace. Teams foul more, which limits fast break opportunities. Generally pace goes down in the playoffs. No back-to-back games allows opposing players to recover better from all the running. Finally, there is more time to prepare in the playoffs.

And that Suns team was without a doubt the best team in the league in ‘06, when they were absolutely jobbed out of the Spurs series. That was the season where, like Birdman said, they had a top-5 defense once it was pace adjusted (and we had the top offense, pace adjusted also). Why they blew that team up the next year I’ll never know. I’m pretty sure Steve Kerr might be the worst GM in the league. Can you think of anybody that has done so horribly so early in his tenure with a team?

Joel: I was just thinking of that actually. That was the one year they had the best shot and Stern/Stu Jackson took it all away.

Birdman: I can’t argue the numbers and pace, but they got shut down when they played against a touch defensive opponent that forced them into half court sets and was good at clogging passing lanes. I guess that’s playoff basketball for you. I think Hollinger did favor them though, or it sure the hell seemed like it. I remember reading review after review where he would just gush all over them and say the same things you listed, but in the end they’d get bounced from the playoffs..year after year. His PER makes for interesting reading though, I’ll give him that.

I haven’t looked extensively at the numbers, but I remember seeing in the past that those suns teams were average defensively. I always thought rebounding was a bigger problem, especially in the playoffs when the games slowed down and there were fewer total possessions.

you think steve kerr is bad now, just wait till he trades amare for 60 cents on the dollar.

Can you think of anybody that has done so horribly so early in his tenure with a team?

Isiah Thomas, certainly. I also think Larry Bird is extremely underrated in how terrible of a job he’s done for the Pacers. I’ll also add Chris Wallace and David Kahn to the list.

I don’t think Kerr has been extraordinarily bad. He’s at least shown guts, and not quite a stupid of guts as Isiah. He moved Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks’ horrible contract for Shaq – with how quickly Marion declined and how bad Banks’ deal is, I’d say that was a pretty decent value even if it didn’t pan out. They’ve actually not sold off their draft picks (which is a nice change) and brought in a couple nice players.

I think the Diaw trade was a big mistake, but not catastrophic.

That team needed made-over. Shawn Marion was a cancer and the squad was in the same place as the Pistons. I wouldn’t feel incredibly confident with Kerr at the helm, but there’s certainly plenty worse.

you think steve kerr is bad now, just wait till he trades amare for 60 cents on the dollar.

That’d be a bad thing? Amare isn’t resigning, why let him walk without getting anything in return? Trading him is the most important part of their rebuilding, even if 60 cents on the dollar is the most they can hope to get.

I’d love to hear what it would take to get Amare before the trade deadline this season. Maybe Rip plus some #1 picks? As the Suns roster stands, they really have no dedicated SG since J-Rich plays the 3 for them. Hill and Barbosa will be dynamite coming off the bench. Problem is they’re pretty thin upfront. Maybe throw in J-Max?

Wishful thinking, but I just can’t shake the feeling that with Amare at the 5, we could have a potentially revolutionary offensive lineup. Especially with literally any type of commitment to defense, we’d be elite immediately.

Stuck/Bynum/BG
BG/Stuck/Washington
Tay/Daye/Summers/Washington
CV/Amare/Wilcox/Summers/Daye
Amare/Wilcox/Ben

That’s a lot of firepower, youth, and athleticism right there. And some experience too. Pretty much guaranteed relevancy for 5 years at least. Wishful thinking.

Hell, with our young SF situation, I might even be okay with a Rip+Tay for Amare deal. Basically, I love Amare. I know the knocks on him, but the guy is downright offensively dominant down low, and in those series with the Spurs, he showed multiple times that he could shut down Tim Duncan.

Joel: I’d love to see Amare here but before any trades, I first want to see how well our 3 guard rotation will be. If they are anything like what JoeD envisions with the bad boys 3 guard rotation, then maybe it’s a good thing to not trade Rip. We can be very dominate with our backcourt and maybe just have enough to squeeze by with an OK front court. I don’t know if a Stuck/BG/MFWB rotation is sufficient but maybe good if our front court is greatly improved with Amare. I don’t think washington is ready for any kind of consistent role though.

Daye Glow: a pretty decent article on our 15th pick, over on Pistons.com. there isn’t a lot of the usual fluff to this one. as the information was relayed to Langolis by Joe Abunassar. In summary it goes on about how good Daye really is. And how folks like billups, Garnett and others are highly impressed with his skill level.

I’m drinking the Daye koolaid. I feel sorry for me.

High praise for Daye – http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/truebluepistons_090917.html

I’m all for Austin Daye and I think he’s going to do well for us, but of course the guy who trains him, runs a camp for young guys and drops names like hell is going to say he’s groomed him into a “special player.”

Was that an article or a commercial for Impact Basketball?

Hey, did you know that guy trained Kevin Garnett?

@TDP:
I was thinking precisely the same thing when reading that. Like dude is going to say anything negative? Come on…

I would have the same feelings, except Garnett, Billups etc. trained with him this year along with Daye. He didn’t call Daye an allstar. he said he was a special player. with tremendous skill. Obviously he is already established with the vets he has at the camp.

Fair enough, but I just remember enough “MCIAFI is exactly what this team needs – a great communicator!” coming from Langolier’s blog last year that I’ll believe Daye is better than he was at Gonzaga when I see it. I’m hopeful, but at this point I see him as a guy with great tools but not much else.

OT: Pistons not getting a whole lot of love over at realgm.

http://www.realgm.com/src_feature_pieces/819/20090910/five_year_windows

25th … harsh.

That guy makes plenty of mistakes in that article— especially suggesting that the Pistons are Rip and Tay’s team, and if you trade them the result will not be greater than the sum of the team’s parts. I disagree there, wholeheartedly. Of course, it depends on what we could get for rip/tay…

I also see the Hornets much higher. When Stojakovich’s contract expires in 2011, they’ll have $31M combined with other expiring contracts to play around in an unheralded, decent free agent class.

What if Carmelo Anthony signed in New Orleans that year? Less likely, but what about Kobe as well? Or a cheaper, much improved Thaddues Young? This lineup would be unreal in New Orleans:

Chris Paul
(pick your SG, draft or FA)
Carmelo Anthony
David West
Emeka Okafor

I disagree about the wolves, too. If they can figure out their wing issues, they’ll be a playoff team. The trio of Sessions, Love and Jefferson is another scorer away from nastiness.

@Mike Payne:
Errors like this?
But Danny Ainge is the most under-appreciated GM in the business and is almost singled-handedly carrying the ‘former player as top decision-maker’ torch. He does as good of a job as anyone as seeing multiple moves ahead and that is why he was able to trade for Garnett, not because of any incestuous loyalty on the part of Kevin McHale (though that didn’t exactly hurt matters).

All. Credibility. Gone.

@Laughton:
Bingo!