A.I. is the best answer for now
Published in The Daily Journal, Dec. 3, 2009
Allen Iverson is back where he started his pro basketball career, and when he takes the court Monday at the Wachovia Center, many fans will have visions of the 2001 NBA Finals run dancing in their heads.
There is little harm in that. It is the holiday season, after all. Belief and good will are popular at this time of year.
Beyond the irrational exuberance, however — which ignores the fact that Iverson, 34, is not the same player physically who won four scoring titles and a Most Valuable Player Award — there is a more logical reason to cheer the move. Due to failures by management over the last three seasons, the Sixers cannot make a significant move to improve themselves for at least three more years.
In the meantime, the Iverson signing is the most inspired move possible.
The Sixers are dead in the water, as many fans appear to have noticed (or not noticed, if home attendance is any indication). They are in no position to make a leap to the top of the standings this season with the personnel on hand, and will never make that jump as long as they retain Elton Brand, Samuel Dalembert and Andre Iguodala under their prohibitive contracts.
Player salaries are the single biggest determinant of success in the NBA, which somewhat counter-intuitively combines freedom of guaranteed contracts with the constraints of a salary cap. The most valuable commodity in the league is a large, expiring contract. Some teams clamor to acquire such players, eager to shed a good chunk of money at the end of the season.
The Sixers will have one such contract next season in $12 million man Dalembert. The next time they will have similar flexibility is when Brand’s deal expires with his $18 million salary in 2012-13. Because of a player option, Iguodala is signed on for another five years of at least $12 million per.
In the meantime, the Sixers can’t do anything.
n They can’t make a serious offer to Cavaliers megastar LeBron James, who becomes a free agent this offseason. No acquisition would make anywhere near the same impact.
n They can’t trade Brand or Dalembert, because every other team saw at the time of their respective signings that those two players were compromised. Brand was damaged, injury-prone goods. Dalembert has the basketball IQ of a frog.
n They can’t build around Iguodala. He has made vast improvements since entering the league in 2004, but last season and early this season have revealed that Iggy would make a great second-fiddle in the Scottie Pippen or Lamar Odom mold, but doesn’t have the gift to be a headline star.
With all these realities, the Sixers cannot begin to formulate a plan for three years from now. There is too much house cleaning to do, and signing Iverson to a non-guaranteed contract worth a little more than $1 million is not going to make a heap of difference there.
Where his signing might make a difference is on the court and at Philadelphia nightspots. Only the latter is a legitimate concern.
On the court, some have voiced concern over hurting the development of the team’s young talent. In response, what young talent would be hurt? If Lou Williams is the future, as the team insists, then we have seen the future and it is immature and weak with the basketball. Thaddeus Young has regressed wildly since the middle of last season. In limited duty, rookie Jrue Holiday has shown all the skills but a shortage of chutzpah.
If there was one quality Iverson always brought to his team, it was chutzpah.
As for the nightlife thing, well, that’s part of the package. Iverson is 34 now, so one hopes he has gotten most of the late nights out of his system. If it weren’t for baggage, Iverson wouldn’t be on the market. In fact, he never would have been traded from the Sixers in the first place.
Should Iverson show up for a 10 a.m. shootaround with bloodshot eyes, surely Sixers president and general manager Ed Stefanski would sympathize. A bad hangover goes away in a few hours; Stefanski is still feeling sick to his stomach over deals he signed two years ago.
Benjee
