After undergoing a grueling, miserable season with the Pistons that saw him fall from top ten to not mentioned at all, Allen Iverson finally emerged from the mire last night in his debut with the Memphis Grizzlies, three games into their season. The ex-Sixers legend failed to get the kind of offer he was looking for in the off-season to be signed as either a role player on a championship team or an offensive focal point on a rebuilding team, and after resisting the temptation to bolt overseas, ended up signing an underwhelming 1-yr / 3 mil contract to back up Mike Conley and OJ Mayo on the Grizzlies. He was used in that reserve role last night against the Sacramento Kings, scoring 11 points with an assist, a three, and two turnovers in about 18 minutes of a 127-116 OT loss.
Watching the game--which, by the way, was surprisingly exciting for a game between possibly the two worst teams in the West--I was mildly impressed, if still somewhat concerned, by Iverson's performance. For the first half of his minutes, he seemed intent on demonstrating a Team Player mindset, bringing the ball up-court but quickly dishing off to teammates, uninterested in forcing or even finding shots. But late in the third, with the Grizz starting to lag a bit on offense, AI transitioned into Takeover Mode, hitting a couple straight of his patented crossover fadeaways in the lane, and sinking an open three to help get Memphis stay in the game. It was a stretch that definitely showed that Iverson, when on, Still Has It, but it should set off an alarm or two to see him choosing to serve only as a scorer or a distributor at a time, when an integration of the two mindsets is doubtless what Memphis would rather see from him.
Naturally, Iverson had something to say after the game about his role on his new team. “I had a problem with my butt from sitting on the bench so long," said Iverson. "I'm not a reserve basketball player [...] I’ve never been a reserve all my life and I’m not going to start looking at myself as a reserve. AI also went on to say that he "told [his] teammates that [he] didn’t think they knew [he] was in the game" on a play late in the game that could have clinched it for the Grizzlies, and concluded about his career, "Go look at my resume, it will show you that I’m not a sixth man.” Well, aside from that last part, anyway.
I doubt anyone inside or outside Memphis will be surprised by Iverson's discontent, although maybe they hoped that it would take at least two or three games for him to start voicing it. No matter--this was always going to be a pretty ****** up Grizzlies team, with AI sharing court time with bad seed Zach Randolph, me-first gunners OJ Mayo and Rudy Gay, draft-bust-in-waiting Hasheem Thabeet and Pau Gasol's idiot younger brother. May as well bring the craziness out in the open from the get--a situation I look forward to monitoring as the year goes on and the bad blood really starts to build.
Story: Grizzlies, Iverson Off to Rocky Start (Yahoo! Sports)
Original Story:
http://www.the700level.com/2009/11/wa...
|
November 03, 2009
