Iverson trade

'll just empty out my twenty five cents today. But here's my take on this deal.

It wasn't a good deal for either side. Start with Philly

The team that deals off the star player is usually hosed. This is almost always true in basketball. Basketball a star player has a much greater effect than other sports. In baseball a star hitter can be walked, or may not even come up to bat in a key situation. In football a star on a crummy team can't do much and if they don't play QB or RB they must rely on others even more so. In basketball, the star player gets and indeed, demands the ball especially in critical moments. So as a result, trading premier players in basketball is a rare and difficult thing, because the team doing it can't get value on the dollar without another superstar being traded to them.. which doesn't happen. So what did Philly get instead?

A journeyman point guard who can at least run an East team, a washed up #1 pick who is backing up another washed up pick, and two picks. And draft picks.. well, very few teams have a good track record on picks, particularly in late round picks. Basketball drafts aren't quite as bad as football with the drooling over physical skills, but they are still pretty bad. The real value they got was that their pick is probably more valuable. Essentially they are saying; screw it lets blow the savings on lottery tickets and see what happens.

But what about Denver? Surely getting a premier player in his early 30s is a valuable commodity toward building a championship caliber team, isn't it? Well perhaps not. I'm not convinced AI will coexist, not because of his attitude, but because of Melo's. They did do at least something right by dishing the only other person who needs the ball on the team (Miller). But having two alpha dogs, with nobody to ride shotgun isn't a proven strategy for victory. We think it worked last year because of Shaq-Wade, but Shaq is old and battered. He only needs to dominate for brief periods. I'm not convinced that the same thing can work here.

But I'm still going to go catch Denver the next time they're nearby (March I think). Just to see how the experiment pans out.

(It panned out poorly, both were out extended periods and they still had no defense besides Camby)