Iverson NOT retiring??

[Culburn369]

Not a Farve, Brett was honestly having trouble figuring out if he wanted to retire.

My ass. He didn't want to endure the rigors of training camp. Like MJ. Both figured they'd skip the hard work & commitment to the team and cop a ring on the sly. MJ failed miserably. I'm hoping that f'k Favre gets the exact same comeuppance.

[duncan228]

Time for Iverson to pass to Jennings
By J.A. Adande
ESPN

Allen Iverson’s retirement announcement didn’t unleash a powerful emotional reaction from me because I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him and because, as it dawned on me Wednesday night, we’ve already seen the next of him: Brandon Jennings. And in order for Jennings to truly grow into that role, Iverson has to go. It’s the natural order of things.

I tuned in to Milwaukee’s game in New Orleans (that I’d even consider watching a Bucks-Hornets game knowing full well Chris Paul wasn’t playing is a testament in itself to Jennings) and there was the Iverson phenomenon all over again. The most compelling player on the court was a scrawny little guard wearing No. 3.

Perhaps I’ve been watching too much “Lost” or other time-traveling science fiction shows, but I believe you can’t have the past and future versions of the same person actually meet. It disrupts the space-time continuum. Ok, perhaps that’s speculation based on imaginary issues. On a more practical level we do know that two objects can’t occupy the same space at the same time. And we’ve seen the evolution of basketball is based upon building off a precedent, not simultaneous interaction.

Michael Jordan wouldn’t have developed into the player he became without watching Dr. J and David Thompson. And clearly Kobe Bryant is who he is because he had the MJ template to follow. Jordan’s career only overlapped with Julius Erving’s for three years. Kobe only had two years in the league with the real Jordan (Jordan’s time in a Washington Wizards uniform isn’t a part of the official Jordan canon), and it’s not a coincidence that he’s the closest approximation to Jordan that we’ve seen. Notice how none of the so-called Next Jordans who played against him in his prime actually fulfilled that promise? That’s in part because Jordan wasn’t having any of it, and still had a way to stomp them back down into their place. But they also bore the burden of being compared directly to him, rather than merely being reminiscent of him.

Kobe has the benefit of space. Enough details about No. 23 have slipped from our minds, enough people new to the game have popped up for some to suggest Kobe is better than Jordan. It’s the same mistake people make in picking Iverson over Isiah Thomas as the game’s greatest small player. Never would have happened if Iverson played in the 80s. But the passage of time allows the new generation of players to have their moment, to blossom in our view. No harm in it. Do we really want to go forward thinking the game’s greatest days are locked in the past, that we can never have someone better come along?

If Jennings is to have his own legend, sooner or later Iverson had to make way for him. It might as well be now.

Iverson could be an injured point guard or two away from returning to the NBA. But Iverson as we knew him is done. Even if he comes back he won’t be a 30-per-game scorer anymore. He won’t be the all-star game Most Valuable Player again (as a two-time winner of the award he’s on a short list with Dr. J, Magic, Isiah Thomas, MJ, Karl Malone , Shaq, Kobe and LeBron as the multiple winners in the past 40 years).

Maybe that’s why I’m not choking up at the prospect of Iverson actually retiring. It’s like the difference between Johnny Carson’s death and Michael Jackson’s. When Carson passed away we mourned, but we didn’t feel a sense of loss because he had been gone from our lives for years, disappearing from public view after he stepped off the Tonight Show set. Michael Jackson’s death hurt us because he was on the verge of performing a series of comeback concerts. We were denied another look at the greatest entertainer of our time.

Iverson retiring at 34 doesn’t deprive us the way Jordan’s first retirement at 30 did. We knew Jordan had more championships in him. Does anyone think Iverson can re-do his 2001 MVP season and drag another team into the NBA Finals?

One of the reason’s Jordan’s 1993 retirement was so jarring is because the succession plan wasn’t in place. There wasn’t another star capable of taking over for him. He upset the natural order, and the league suffered as a result. But by the time Jordan took off the Bulls jersey for good in 1999, Shaq was established, Kobe was emerging and Vince Carter was on the scene to bring in the next level of dunking.

Now the small man lineage that went from Nate Archibald to Isiah Thomas to Iverson is in place and splitting into branches, giving us Chris Paul and apparently Jennings to carry it forward. Wednesday was a night of rookie learning lessons for Jennings, but also provided a glimpse of what he can become. New Orleans’ Darren Collison, filling in for the injured Paul, swiped the ball from Jennings in the backcourt and was fouled for go-ahead free throws, and drove past Jennings for the game-winning basket in overtime. In between Jennings had his moment, a slow-motion version of Tyus Edney’s end-to-end dash in which Jennings started with the inbounds pass 90 feet from the basket, paused just past midcourt to survey the floor, then exploded down the middle of the lane, splitting David West and Darius Songalia and making a layup to tie the score.

It’s like that already with Jennings. Anytime he has the ball in his hands you think he can make something incredible happen. Even his hair is fascinating. In the short time he’s been on the scene he’s given us everything from high-top fade to twists, from early Kenny Walker to late Charles Oakley. And if he keeps growing his hair out and braids it, you know who that would be, right?

Exactly.

[Culburn369]

10 games in and this Jennings kid is already pregnant with legend, Iverson's no less.

I God's.

[BlackBellamy]

10 games in and this Jennings kid is already pregnant with legend, Iverson's no less.

I God's.

When you're an undersized guard that doesn't pass, that's made a living through slashing (and over-all quickness) your entire career, you lose a step and refuse to take a lessened role, it's over. Jennings might end up the same way, but the upside is so bright for the kid that any team in this league (obviously) would love to have Jennings, while A.I. still seeks employment.

[Culburn369]

The kicker? Adande has probably been walking around with that story on his laptop for over a week.

[duncan228]

Iverson truly was one of a kind
By Chris Bernucca

"Hey, man, where you goin'?"

The voice was firm, but not as firm as the grip on my wrist.

"Nah, man, let him go. He all right, man, he all right. What's up, man. How you doin'?"

This scene took place in the lobby bar of the Caribe Hilton in San Juan in August 2003. The FIBA Tournament of the Americas was under way, and just about everyone affiliated with it - from players to coaches to referees to writers - was staying at the hotel.

The first voice belonged to someone I did not know at the time but got to know slightly better over the next two weeks.

His name was Wes, better known as Worldwide Wes.

The second voice belonged to the guy Wes was protecting. We had spoken dozens of times over the previous five years, knew each other's faces and had a tacit level of mutual respect and trust, even though we had never been formally introduced.

His name was Allen Iverson.

We talked for no more than five minutes. I asked him about the flying lariat across the neck that Anderson Varejao had given him that night. I told him that the Hilton used to have a casino years ago but not anymore. I asked him if his kids were havin g a good time.

Over the next two weeks, I saw his kids play in the pool and a guy who claimed to be his uncle knock back scotches and his wife poke around in the gift shop. I saw him and his boys close the lobby bar by playing spades. One afternoon, I came out of my hotel room and he was standing in the hallway, talking to his mom.

"What's up, baby?" he said as I walked by.

That's the Allen Iverson I will remember.

Do you want to remember Iverson as stubborn, selfish, self-absorbed? Do you want to believe his abbreviated stints in Detroit and Memphis revealed his true character? Do you want to use his persona as a permanent logo for how the NBA has gone wrong in the post-Jordan era? Go right ahead.

I see that side of Iverson. I almost get it, too, especially as a coach of youth basketball. Trying to rationalize Iverson's unique style as a base model for preteens still learning the game is disingenuous.

But it is that singular talent that will make me miss Iverson more than any player who has come and gone during my lifetime. More than Wilt, more than Doc, more than Magic, more than Jordan.

Whenever I spoke with Iverson after a game, it was always evident that I was looking him in the eye. He was slightly taller than my 5-9, but he was not the 6 feet the roster listed him at, either. And it never got old that someone barely bigger than me could totally control an NBA game.

Someday 30 years from now, Iverson will be relaxing somewhere and someone unaware of who he is will ask him what he did before he retired. And he will say, "I played in the NBA."

And that someone will express disbelief. "Really? You don't look big enough to be a basketball player. How many points did you score?"

And Iverson will say, "In 14 seasons, I scored more than 24,000 points, and I averaged 27 points per game."

And that someone will walk away, certain they are being taken for a ride. What that someone should have done was just sit back and enjoy the ride, as I have done for the last 14 years.

Allen Iverson rescued the Philadelphia 76ers, the only team I still have a passion for in 20 years of sportswriting. Along with frenemy Larry Brown, he pulled the franchise out of the abyss and made it relevant again. And he did it in his own stubborn, selfish, self-absorbed and remarkably effective way.

Iverson's detractors point to his low field-goal percentage. I prefer to point to the countless times he drove into the teeth of a defense, drew a handful of defenders and put up a layup that was hammered home by Tyrone Hill or Dikembe Mutombo or some other offensively challenged teammate who couldn't score in a brothel on Sadie Hawkins Day. Now I ask the numbers wonks: Is that a missed shot? Or is it an adjusted assist?

Iverson's detractors like to say he didn't make his teammates any better. Really? I guess Theo Ratliff would have gotten than lone All-Star berth by himself. And I guess Aaron McKie would have won the Sixth Man Award sooner or later. And I guess Kyle Korver didn't appreciate the extra space he had when lining up a 3-pointer. Please.

Iverson's detractors recall the infamous "Practice!" rant as an example of his lack of respect for the game. In fact, Iverson gave that interview in the days after an embarrassing Game Five loss in Boston in which he was the only member of the Sixers who came to play in an elimination game. He was there to clean out his locker and meet with Billy King, not do a Q and A with the media. But he did it anyway, raw and unplugged.

And Iverson's detractors use his stops in Detroit and Memphis as evidence of his intransigence and inflated opinion of himself as a player. In your workplace, if you were clearly more skilled and driven than other co-workers to the same degree that Iverson was clearly more skilled and driven than Rodney Stuckey or Mike Conley, how long would you sit idly by and simply accept it? Just askin'.

But beyond the polarizing arguments is this obvious fact: Like no other player I have ever seen, Iverson compelled me to watch. In addition to the insane skill and unprecedented speed and incomprehensible lack of size was an insatiable desire to compete that we had never seen before and might not ever see again. You didn't dare look away or change the channel, because if you did, you might miss something like this:



Watch the clip again and look at Iverson's teammates. These are NBA players who are so flabbergasted by what a fellow NBA player just did that they can barely contain themselves from rushing the court in unbridled glee.

Remember Iverson any way you'd like. Remember him as a purist's nightmare. Remember him as a beacon of basketball culture. Remember him as an iconoclast. Remember him as the greatest small man to ever play the game.

But when you remember Allen Iverson, ask yourself this.

Were you not entertained?

[pauls931]

That's hilarious. Favre was drama queening for the last few years about retiring. It had nothing to do with trouble figuring it out. It was all about the drama.

Then why couldn't he stay retired?

[Agloco]

I've never seen anyone who's needed their ego stroked more than Iverson. How much emotional head does Thompson plan on giving him I wonder?

[Chomag]

Its amazing how James and Wade have no sense of history of the sport they claim to love. How in the did AI make the cross over cool when Tim Hardaway coined the phrase "The Killer Crossover." AI a pioneer!!! Only thing that guy pioneered was corn-rolls.

Good Post. This has allways bothered me. He may not been as popular but Tim Hardaway was the master and inventor of that move before AI was even out of Highschool.

As for AI.What a freaking attention ! He just needs to GTFO!

[Chieflion]

When you're an undersized guard that doesn't pass, that's made a living through slashing (and over-all quickness) your entire career, you lose a step and refuse to take a lessened role, it's over. Jennings might end up the same way, but the upside is so bright for the kid that any team in this league (obviously) would love to have Jennings, while A.I. still seeks employment.

I am sorry but this is a wrong misconception of Brandon Jennings. Who could he pass to on a regular basis? Only Bogut and Ilyasova at best. If Milwaukee had more firepower, Jennings would gladly take more assists than points.