Originally Posted by Mortimer

EAUXH!?


So ...it doesn't help them this year?

Originally Posted by King Glorious

I think it makes them a little bit better but no, I don't think it makes them a championship team. I don't think every move should be made to make a team a championship team in that particular year. I think it's a good move for the future of the team without them having to have a drop off while making the transition.

Originally Posted by Mortimer

Oh he does..from what I've seen of him.

But a ball hog..and "me" before "team."



I'm very happy for the Pistons.

Originally Posted by GPK

Definitely not the defintion of a team player. Incredibly talented and fearless though.

Originally Posted by King Glorious

I think it's sometimes unfair to call guys like Iverson selfish or to say they aren't team players. You have to consider the teams they play with and the amount of talent they have alongside them. When he was playing with Philadelphia, who else in the world would anyone have wanted to be shooting the ball besides Iverson? Aaron McKie? Eric Snow? A lot of people point to the number of shots he takes but again, who else would you want taking them besides him? I look at the year they made it to the championship series. That year, Iverson took 28% of his team's shots. That's not out of line with other star scorers in the NBA. The year the Bulls won the first title, Jordan took 26% of his team's shots. In the first two years without Shaq, Kobe took 33% and 26% of his team's shots. Even with Shaq in 2003, he took 28% of them. LeBron James in his highest scoring year took 28% of his team's shots. Iverson is right in line. Also, four times he's finished in the top 10 in assists per game. How many other great scorers do that? And his toughness is well known. For a lot of those years, he was playing on some teams that weren't any good at all. A selfish player might take that opportunity to sit out games. Why go all out when you have no chance of winning? Not Iverson. He'd not only play through his injuries but he'd still give every ounce of energy he had. He's led the league in minutes per game plenty of times. There are a lot of players that I'd call selfish. Iverson's name would never come up.

Originally Posted by King Glorious

Where they going to win if they hadn't made this move? The move allows them to still be competitive while setting themselves up financially to have more flexibility in the next offseason.

Originally Posted by GPK

Me too Lori. Been a fan of him for a long time.

Originally Posted by declansharbor

Was one of my happier days in sport fandom when the Sixer's got rid of him. He will never, I repeat NEVER, win a championship. His shot selection was piss poor, almost as bad as Iguodala's.

Originally Posted by declansharbor

Was one of my happier days in sport fandom when the Sixer's got rid of him. He will never, I repeat NEVER, win a championship. His shot selection was piss poor, almost as bad as Iguodala's.

Originally Posted by Antitrust32

You are just racist towards people with the initials A I

:p ;)

Originally Posted by declansharbor

That could be it, I can't stand either of them.


And Kev, I used to feel the same about Kobe and Eddie Griffin too as i was live for a few hs games of theirs, but that soon wore off and Kobe quickly became an enemy.

AI is no doubt talented, but you can not build a winning team concept around him. Once he left here, we tapped into some potential that went unused for some time and began playing like a team.

Originally Posted by declansharbor

That could be it, I can't stand either of them.


And Kev, I used to feel the same about Kobe and Eddie Griffin too as i was live for a few hs games of theirs, but that soon wore off and Kobe quickly became an enemy.

AI is no doubt talented, but you can not build a winning team concept around him. Once he left here, we tapped into some potential that went unused for some time and began playing like a team.

Originally Posted by King Glorious

I am not sure how to interpret this. I think Denver must obviously feel like the team they had couldn't do it. They lost all of their defense when they lost Najara and Camby and this is their way of trying to get some of that back along with a little more offense in the process. I have a feeling though that Anthony won't respect Billups as much as he did Iverson and he'll try to dominate the team offense and I just don't think that's going to work. Either way, I didn't think much of Denver's chances to make a real impact in the West beforehand and I still don't.

Detroit is different. Billups was the heart and soul of that team and it's hard to replace that once it's lost. However, if there is any player in the league to try to replace that with, it's Iverson. I think Detroit realized that they did need a little something on offense. They have guys that can score but I think Iverson is the kind of guy that can not only score but he puts more pressure on a defense than Billups does. I think Iverson will open up the court a little bit more for their offense. I don't think it hurts them at all and if it doesn't work out, they are in a better position to do things in the offseason once Iverson and Rasheed Wallace's contracts both expire. I believe those two contracts total about $35 million. I think Dumars is looking at his roster and thinking that they'd be better off playing an uptempo style and taking advantage of the young, athletic players that they have and Iverson is more suited to that style than Billups is. Overall, I like the move for Denver but not as much as I like it for Detroit.