Posts tagged AllenIverson at FanHouse

Carmelo Anthony was finally having a good season.

He'd stayed out of trouble, got himself a gold medal, and even though the Allen Iverson experiment was an unmitigated disaster, the arrival of Chauncey Billups has invigorated the entire team and brought new life to him.

So, naturally, on Monday night he suffered what is being referred to as a "probable fracture" by team officials and will see a specialist on Tuesday. ESPN reports that Anthony could barely use his hand at all due to the pain and injury.

The good news is that it's possible from the sound of the article that it won't be a long-term injury. Still, for a guy who's had a pretty amazing run, it's too bad to see that, especially with the big Dick Vitale game on Wednesday night.

It's also stunning to me that we're talking about a matter of days here. To play professional basketball with giant guys. Think about that. If I broke my hand, I'd be unsuccessfully trying to get out of honey-do chores with the ball and chain for six months. The fact that we're talking about a matter of days for Melo to return to action speaks both to his commitment, which is often questioned, and modern science.

A report from the Palace of Auburn Hills, where the Pistons faced the Magic on Dec. 29.

Integrating Allen Iverson into Detroit's offense is an ongoing process that hasn't been easy, and Michael Curry isn't done trying new things. Earlier this month he seemed to settle on a "smallball" lineup featuring three guards and Tayshaun Prince playing out of position at power forward, but that's left the Pistons exposed on the defensive end.

More recently, injuries to both Iverson (who missed the second half on Dec. 23) and Rip Hamilton (who's sat out the last two games completely) have forced the team back to a more traditional lineup, and considering the Pistons have responded with four straight wins, including Monday night against the Magic, Curry seems ready to explore moving one of his established perimeter players to the bench.

"The big lineup makes us better defensively," Curry said. "And at the end of the day, we're going to have to make sure we're good enough defensively."

With Jordan Farmar out for the next couple of months after having surgery to repair a torn meniscus, there have been discussions about whether the Lakers will look to make a move to bring in a backup point guard. The pickings are pretty slim out there at that position -- just ask the Suns. But if this rumor is to be believed, it would appear that the Lakers are trying to deal for a warm body nonetheless, and it's a familiar one: former Laker (and two-time NBA champion!) Tyronn Lue.

While Bell and Ridnour have health and injury issues, Tyronn Lue doesn't have either. But Lue's status appears to be up in the air as well. It is believed the Bucks have an offer on the table from the Los Angeles Lakers for Lue, with the Bucks receiving veteran big man Chris Mihm in return.

Most Laker fans remember Lue's time in Los Angeles fondly for some reason, but all I can remember is Allen Iverson stepping over him in disgust after hitting what was effectively the game winner in overtime of Game 1 of the 2001 NBA Finals. It's not like he'd be expected to play extended minutes though, and in fact, it's possible Lue would never see the court.

The Lakers are still a solid eight players deep (nine if you count Vladimir Radmanovic) even with Farmar sidelined, so this would only be an insurance move in case another guard were to go down with an injury. The Lakers are loaded with semi-serviceable bigs Josh Powell and DJ Mbenga, so dealing Mihm for a guard to sit on the bench seems like a logical move, and a harmless one at that.

When you're winning, you can rack up technicals at a record pace and no one will complain (see: Celtics, Boston). But when you're hovering around .500? All of a sudden it seems kind of silly to be giving the other team extra free throws. Ladies and gentleman, your 2008-09 Detroit Pistons!

Rasheed Wallace leads the league with 10 techs while Rip Hamilton and Allen Iverson each have four. Michael Curry has implored his team to leave the refs alone, but it hasn't yet worked -- the Pistons have picked up a tech in each of the last nine games. Will the message sink in coming from a teammate? Tayshaun Prince hopes so. From Chris Lau of the Detroit Free Press:

"Them dudes, they off the chain," Prince said. "I can't help them. I talk to them as much as I can. I can't do nothing. You know what? There's been plenty of times where we've been aggressive going to the rim, couple things don't go our way, then a couple ticky-tack calls and the next thing you know, we start to yell at the refs."

The Pistons have been awful on Sundays this season, 0-5 before this week's match at Atlanta with losses to such omnipotent foes as the 4-22 Minnesota Timberwolves and the 11-15 New York Knicks. And as nobly as Detroit competed this time around, the team still fell to the Hawks 85-78.

Perhaps worse news is that Michael Curry benched Allen Iverson with four minutes left and the Pistons down six. Sitting A.I. made a bit of sense: The Answer had an awful shooting game (4-for-11) and fellow starter Rodney Stuckey had played well on the offensive end (20 points on 12 shots). Curry needed to keep sixth man Antonio McDyess in the game for rebounding help, and wanted Stuckey in there. Out came A.I. with the second-year guard heading back in.

Iverson didn't seem to take it well.

David Stern recently told ESPN columnist Bill Simmons that his biggest regret had been the failure to properly build success in Vancouver when the league expanded there in the 1990s. That admission allowed some good discourse on what happen in B.C. -- the consensus has been that it simply came down to players and the lacking of any sort of winning culture. But there are also outliers, like Mark Hasiuk, a columnist with the Vancouver Courier. He takes the chatter about the old Grizzlies to get in a few tried and tested rips on the league.

The NBA is America at its worst. The once proud league, which peaked 20 years ago during the Bird/Magic/Jordan era, has morphed into a reality TV show, where money and image trump teamwork and athletic achievement. Players like Allen Iverson--perhaps the greatest basketball talent of his generation--spend more energy producing sneaker commercials than winning basketball games. NBA players wear saggy shorts, roll in posses and cuss on camera. [...]

To be fair, the NBA, like other professional sports leagues, is a business. And it's not responsible for the endemic problems of black America. But considering basketball's influence on black popular culture, the NBA has a responsibility to produce a "positive" product, not the ghetto garbage we see today.

Hasiuk (who is white) goes out of his way to blame Stern and the owners for the problems, and even absolves perennial bogeyman "hip hop culture" from blame by asserting that hip hop died in the '70s. (?!) But every single scarecrow the anti-NBA hordes have presented for a decade now show up here: A.I, posses, saggy shorts. Come one, where are the Cadillacs and cornrows? You've got half of the dog-whistle racial indicators, why not go full bore?

Trash talk is part of the game, right? Kevin Garnett has one of the biggest mouths in the league and he's celebrated as one of the league's golden boys. But while the league looks the other way when KG harasses an opponent all the way up the floor, it draws a hard line when players start interacting with fans.

Allen Iverson was reminded of this lesson on Tuesday when the league handed down a $25,000 fine for comments directed at a fan near the end of the third quarter in Saturday's win in Charlotte. It's unclear what exactly AI said -- the incident went unreported in the media until the fine was announced -- but I'm guessing it likely included some profanity.

Personally, I think it's refreshing to see the NBA crack down. I know for a fact that fans in Charlotte never, ever use profanity in their own conversations, and it's absolutely unheard in this day and age for fans at any sporting event to taunt or instigate a shouting match with a rival player.

Iverson is making nearly $22 million this year, so truth be told, he might not even notice $25K missing from his paycheck. But still, it's important for the league to at least make a symbolic statement: salty language is 10 times more egregious than skipping practice. Yes sir, the NBA has its priorities straight.

After hinting as much yesterday, Michael Curry confirmed today that Rodney Stuckey will join the starting lineup. He's replacing Kwame Brown, bumping Allen Iverson to off-guard, Rip Hamilton to the three, Tayshaun Prince to the four and Rasheed Wallace to center.

I'm not sure a three-guard lineup will work on a regular basis, but it's certainly worth a shot. Stuckey has turned the corner in his last six games, averaging 12.5 points (.476 FG) and 6.5 assists in just under 25 minutes a game. The offense seems to flow better when he's in the game as Iverson can focus on scoring and Prince doesn't have to play out of position.

Offensively, Hamilton's role shouldn't change, and in fact he may have an easier time shedding bigger players trying to keep up. The same goes for Prince, who should have a mismatch drawing bigger defenders out to the wing. The concern will be on the defensive end, though it's worth pointing out Prince has already had a career year crashing the boards with 6.6 rebounds a game.

The Rotation is a weekly study on the NBA by one of our All-Star voices. In rotation this week is Tom Ziller.

Every time Allen Iverson moves, his new and old teams change irrevocably. A.I. is the type of singular player that demands incredible adjustment, from a team's playing style to the needs of its point guards to the defensive system used to the mix of jumpers and interior moves used to ... everything. A.I. is not a player you can "fit" into your scheme. In gaining or losing Iverson, you have to draw the scheme from scratch.

Since swapping Iverson for Chauncey Billups, Denver has certainly seen a metamorphosis. But Mr. Big Shot isn't The Answer, nor the answer. The truth behind the Nuggets' rise traces also to Chauncey's new friends, Nene and Carmelo Anthony.

On Friday, the Pistons let the 76ers score 38 points in the fourth quarter, losing the game after leading by as many as 15 points late in the third. On Sunday, the Pistons never had a lead to squander as they let the Knicks score the first 10 points of the game, trailing by as many as 29 in the first half before ultimately losing by 12.

Losing any game is disappointing, but losing like the Pistons have this weekend is downright embarrassing. Sadly, though, these types of performances have become routine. Despite impressive wins over the Lakers, Cavaliers and Spurs, Detroit is just 9-8 since Allen Iverson joined the lineup. Everyone expected a few bumps as the team adjusted to A.I.'s presence, but the reality is that the team seems to be regressing.

I suggested a couple of weeks ago that the Pistons should move Iverson to the bench, allowing the rest of the starters to regain their rhythm while giving Iverson a chance to dominate the ball with the second unit. With Rodney Stuckey thriving both as a scoring threat and playmaker in the last several games, I asked Curry in his pre-game meeting with the press on Friday if he ever thought of swapping the two in the starting lineup.

Curry was blunt with his response, looking perhaps a bit confused why I even asked the question: "Nope." Six seconds of awkward silence followed before another reporter changed the subject.