AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

[Vast]

Re: AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

I was about to say didnt the Raja AI thing fail once before under?

When?

[WazzuRC]

Re: AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

When they were both in Philly.

[BiggD]

Re: AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

This is exactly why i don't like Iverson and never have...

[J.R. Locke]

Re: AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

Iverson said that a long time ago though, when he was still in philly.. I think he was talking about Payton and Malone. That if he have to be on the bench to win a title that he wouldn't do it. He'd rather start and be on a losing team, which I don't get. Matter of fact he might of said it on Stephen A "Quite Frankly" show.

I think some players who chase the ring in their later years don't really do anything for it. If Patrick Ewing won a ring as the 12th man for Orlando playing in 3 playoff games for 12 minutes....would he really be proud of that ring? I think that is what Iverson is getting at and I agree with him.

I don't think anyone can legitimately question Iversons desire to win. Unlike a lot of players in the NBA he does play hard each and every night. So this statement doesn't bother me coming from AI.

[23]

Re: AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

I think the statements were taken a bit far as usual in sports and he doesnt deserve all the blame in DET.

Honestly it was a two way deal with AI, either it hypothetically worked out and he would be re-signed since it did go so well

...or he would be gladly let go and his 21 million of salary is rewarded to DET's books next year.

We all knew one or the other would happen and AI in DET will all be forgotten about when the next season gets rolling.

Dumars played alot of experimentation with this team this year simply because he was done with the old core as it was, and likely used this time to evaluate what he wanted to do.

I dont think what Kruza said anything much different in what AI said in that he cannot be as effective in such a structured team offense. Iverson's game has never been that way but I would tell him if I were a coach to start working on some other things because running around the court willy nilly might not get him a ring.

There is no reason why he can't transform himself into a PG in the manner Billups had to (controlled and effective for himself and the team), but his mentality is not there. I dont think anyone but Larry Brown could convince him that he needs to do different things to take it to the next level.

[Lumalu]

Re: AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

I cant see AI jumping on the coat-tails of another superstar just to win a chip. If he does decide to retire, good on him. To many athletes hang on far too long.

[3rdAnswer]

Re: AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

When they were both in Philly.

This was also when Raja had ZERO jumpshot and was an undrafted, unproved rookie in the L. I'm not even sure Raja remembers when he played in Philly with AI.

[P2K]

Re: AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

This was also when Raja had ZERO jumpshot and was an undrafted, unproved rookie in the L. I'm not even sure Raja remembers when he played in Philly with AI.

I'm sure he remembers seeing that they made the Finals and Raja made his name known because he did a very good guarding Kobe And made a big play in the first game of the series.

I wondered why they rid of him afterwards.

[3rdAnswer]

Re: AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

I wondered why they rid of him afterwards.

Yeah me too. I think that was AI's best chance to win a championship, and had they not run into Shaq and Kobe, the outcome may have been different. I thought they were easily the second best team in the league as they were the only team to beat LA in the playoffs AT ALL that year.

[NBA2k8 CHAMP]

Re: AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

This situation makes me sad... =(

AI is a warrior and a freak of nature... he's still got game. I secretly wish that he was still in Denver, because I wanted to see what we could do with a real starting 5 (i.e. with JR at the 2) and another off-season of development. Honestly, I think that we'd be in the same position or better just because AI was actually a pretty good fit in our system and subjugated himself to defer to Melo most of the time. The problem was that K-Mart and Nene weren't healthy and we didn't have a serious defensive bench boost like we do with Birdman... I think the ownership wrote off the AI experiment too soon... Ah well, c'est la vie.

I'll rep AI to the death though.. watching that guy play in person is a privelege, straight up.

Amen!

Nene
Martin
Melo
Smith
Iverson

It's Karl that is holding the Nuggets back, but now with Billups they're not as dynamic anymore!

You had 3 players capable of getting 45+ and 4 players capable of getting 40+ on any given night and 3 players he could average 20+ easily!

If Karl wouldn't put Anthony Carter an Kenyon Martin on Kobe they had a shot,Kobe picked them apart because they had to double him.

Also Karl's dumba** should've traded Kleiza for Artest last season for defensive purposes

[authenticDR]

Re: AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

Amen!

Nene
Martin
Melo
Smith
Iverson

It's Karl that is holding the Nuggets back, but now with Billups they're not as dynamic anymore!

You had 3 players capable of getting 45+ and 4 players capable of getting 40+ on any given night and 3 players he could average 20+ easily!

If Karl wouldn't put Anthony Carter an Kenyon Martin on Kobe they had a shot,Kobe picked them apart because they had to double him.

Also Karl's dumba** should've traded Kleiza for Artest last season for defensive purposes

Are you guys serious? Iverson is not a true point guard, can't play defense worth a damn, and when you have scorers on a team like the Nuggets (Anthony, Smith, Nene, Martin, Kleiza) you need a distributor, a floor general that can get them the ball and play solid defense; not to mention versing some of the best point guard playmakers in the West w/ Paul, Parker, Williams, etc. Offense helps sell tickets, defenses win championships. Iverson looks for his own shot, hence not helping the rest of his teammates get easier shots, in which Billups fits the bill perfectly for Karl's scheme.

[Stumbleweed]

Re: AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

The defense was the real problem, but so much of that was scheme -- the plan was to gamble on defense, switch screens all the time (which they still do, and it drives me crazy), and basiclaly hope for enough transition points to counter-balance the ones they give up as well as the inevitable bad shots. Honestly, Billups' shot selection has been pretty horrendous, especially when he gets into Mr. Big Shot mode and wants to win the game himself... to say he doesn't look for his own shot is kinda ridiculous. He's not the scorer that AI is, so naturally he shoots less, but he still takes those god-awful transition threes with nobody around to rebound 2-3 times a game. His good % from deep (including those terrible shots, which still manage to go in at a 40% clip) as well as his icy veins at the line are his real value to the team -- that's why his True Shooting % is so high, not because he takes good shots.

He certainly calms the team and manages the ball better than most PGs, but again, I think a lot of that was because we had a more frenetic offensive and defensive gameplan last year. Whenever AI would end up with 10+ assists, we'd win -- the most common reason that he didn't get there was because George Karl would play him at SG with Carter playing PG for extended stretches. When he was playing his penetrate and dish game and the rest of the players were moving the ball, the team was impossible to defend with JR and Melo on the floor... the issue was that they weren't on the court enough together to build chemistry because of Karl's distrust of JR and his fetish for Carter..

Anyway, that's all water under the bridge. I like what Chauncey brings to the table, especially his FT shooting, which is absolutely invaluable. His man defense is severely overrated, as is his "selfless play", but he calms the team down and really helps execution late in games, which was an achilles heel of the team previously.

[NBA2k8 CHAMP]

Re: AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

Are you guys serious? Iverson is not a true point guard, can't play defense worth a damn, and when you have scorers on a team like the Nuggets (Anthony, Smith, Nene, Martin, Kleiza) you need a distributor, a floor general that can get them the ball and play solid defense; not to mention versing some of the best point guard playmakers in the West w/ Paul, Parker, Williams, etc. Offense helps sell tickets, defenses win championships. Iverson looks for his own shot, hence not helping the rest of his teammates get easier shots, in which Billups fits the bill perfectly for Karl's scheme.

Do you watch the games?

Billups Defense is soo overrated he was guarding Price for most of the game rather than Deron Williams.

He shoots a lower percentage than Iverson and has less assist.

The thing he brings to the table are Leadership,Free throws, and 3 pt. shooting!

Also The Nuggets offense was better last season the difference this year is Danhtay Jones on the defensive end!

[Stumbleweed]

Re: AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

No way... Dahntay is very overrated defensively also... he gets burned regularly and commits fouls and turnovers at an incredible rate for a guard (check the numbers at ESPN's Hollinger stats page or 82games.com). He'll occasionally make some really nice stops, but I honestly have no idea what Karl's fascination with that guy is.. drives me up the wall every time he's in the game... I can't help but to think about what JR could be doing with those minutes that are given to Dahntay as a matter of course. He's one of the absolute worst statistical players in the game -- he has a negative +/- for the year (a team-worst -9 yet again last night), which only the scrubs like Petro and Weems have on the Nuggets, since they're a winning team. The starting lineup with Dahntay and our best players is +0 on the year and is less efficient both offensively AND defensively than the true starting 5 with JR, but brainless George Karl has still played the starters nearly 4 times the amount of minutes as the real starting 5... it's mind-boggling how Dahntay continues to get on the court when literally every other player aside from Hart and Weems are a better option to be on the floor.

Anyway, Dahntay rant over... The difference defensively is that we no longer have Camby gambling on blocks to pad his stats while not being able to stop ANY post player with any kind of strength inside... Nene is a very solid defender and so is K-Mart when he's healthy -- both of those guys are literally the tops at their position in steals (Nene's WAY out ahead) while not being the type to just gamble and give up easy buckets. Nene's cut down on his fouls this season as well so he can stay on the floor... those guys have been huge this year. The frontcourt is solid now, and that's the major difference among the starting unit.

But BIRDMAN is the guy that is helping our defense so much... the blocks and offensive rebounds are great, but it's the possibility of a block that is his real value -- he just scares the **** out of everyone inside and they aren't comfortable when he's on the floor. Camby did that to a certain extent, but as I mentioned, he's not nimble enough (or energetic enough, partly because he played 34+ minutes and Bird plays 20) to recover if he mis-times a block attempt.. and he's simply too lanky and fragile to defend the real bigs, so he gets eaten alive at C. Also, he doesn't have the footspeed to stop the quicker guys that he'd sometimes get matched up with (think Amare), so he'd just get smoked and then try for a risky weak-side block... Bird makes up for his lack of strength by being able to jump 4 times in 3 seconds to contest the shot every time it goes up... he bites on pumpfakes and gets fouls sometimes, but his presence is invaluable to our defense.

[NBA2k8 CHAMP]

Re: AI would rather retire than come off the bench?

I agree Nene is a much better player than Camby defensively and offensively.Nene can guard a player man to man and help on defense.

On the other side Camby played the perimeter more than Smith,Melo,and Iverson where Nene is on the block shooting a high percentage.

Birdman is vastly underrated he's 2nd in the league in blocks off the bench.He's the Nuggets Anderson Varejao.

The thing about Jones although I do agree with you is it's not a complete mismatch like 6'0 Carter guarding Kobe