Changes In Attitude, Changes in Lattitude, Changes In Offensively Selfish Small Guards

Because really, when you think Allen Iverson, you think Jimmy Buffett.

********************************************

Okay, here’s the deal. I don’t like it anymore than you do. He wasn’t a virus in Denver, because a virus infects slowly overtime. And he wasn’t a timebomb because that’s something that detonates, destroying everything. He was more like some sort of atmospheric shift that caused all the belts to malfunction at once. In Detroit, he wasn’t even destructive, he was just sad. Given that rare combination of players who are dedicated to the team concept, your only goal is to abandon the self in pursuit of the greater good. That’s all you have to do. You don’t even have to be good. But you have to sacrifice. And he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, and therefore he was the final detonation in the Piston implosion sequence. He hasn’t been anything worth having in years, and after all this preening and guffawing over a lack of interest in him, I’d love to blast him for no longer being relevant.

But here’s the thing.

Allen Iverson and the Charlotte Bobcats need each other.

The Cats need a scoring small guard. Not because it’s a roster hole. They can play Raja Bell there. For all his shortcomings, there are worse 2-guards in the league. Not many, but there are some. And worst case scenario they can play Augustin and Felton in a double-combo guard set (which I lovelovelove), feeding off of both player’s abilities. But Iverson is the difference between this team being an also-ran and a playoff contender. They have drive, they have discipline, they have athleticism (well, not as much as they had two months ago, but still). What they don’t have is a scoring component who can just get buckets.

Iverson, on the other hand, needs a locker room he can run, with a coach who he respects and who respects him. Larry Brown is one of five people on the planet to fit this description. Iverson can take up shots, teach the young’ns, hang out in Virginia, and fade out on a positive note. Some guys are meant to capture that ring and ride off into the sunset. Some just slip off unnoticed. And since Iverson’s not going to draw the attention of one of those championship teams at this point, this is as good as anything. Especially with the money.

The Bobcats as a franchise need a star, and even a past-prime Iverson gives them that. They need to sell tickets, jerseys, advertising. Iverson gives them a face to put next to Gerald Wallace. Plus, Augustin-Iverson-Henderson-Diaw-Chandler is something I like very much. It’s a small-small-tiny-ball lineup, but hey, Brown’s a nutjob, he can make it work.

The risk involved is Iverson’s infectious lack of defense and team incoherence. Iverson breeds cliques wherever he goes, and the Bobcats need to maintain some level of closeness to pull off the us-against-them mentality that damn near got them into the playoffs last season. The good news is that Iverson doesn’t have to run point here, but he can control the ball. It’s a perfect set up for him. Wallace operates well off the ball, Diaw can be the lynch-pin, setting and resetting the offense, while Iverson probes for weakness, Henderson wanders in an athletic daze, and Chandler tips things in. Chandler and Iverson give Brown a pair of consistent veterans with that most ridiculous of attributes, “toughness” while Augustin and Henderson provide a nice youth core, and Diaw and Wallace are like some demented pair of bishops.

The Okafor trade was a significant step backwards for this franchise, but the acquisition of Iverson would take the sting off of it and make it make sense. “Tyson Chandler was brought in to supply defensive toughness while A.I. was brought in to light up the offense” makes a lot more sense than “Time Warner Bob decided to cut his losses as much as possible.”

I’ve long argued that the long term goal of this franchise needs to be respectability and repeated playoff berths, not a championship. Those are rare and fleeting and you need to establish, if not a tradition of winning, then a history of competence. Step 1 in pursuit of that goal is getting to a point where you have people the other team is afraid of. And if AI can even scratch the surface of what he is, alongside the new/old Cats, he might get there.

GO TEAM AVERAGE!