Teams keep getting better when the Answer leaves (wikimedia)

Sports Illustrated’s Steve Aschburner wonders why we don’t see Allen Iverson signing on for a supporting role on a contending team:

Allen Iverson ought to be next. The ’01 MVP, nine-time All-Star and four-time scoring leader has the individual résumé for such a move. He presumably has the financial wherewithal to take the requisite pay cut after 13 seasons of superstar wages, including the $76.7 million extension he landed in ’03 and the “lifetime” endorsement deal (whatever that means) he signed with Reebok in ’01. He even has the game for it — think instant offense, sixth man, the sort of player a coach could turn loose off the bench to mess with the opponents’ second unit almost at will. At 34, Iverson still is quick enough, slippery enough and crafty enough to change games.

He concludes that “What he doesn’t have, though, is the attitude for it.”

Alternatively, maybe after trading Iverson for Andre Miller made Philadelphia better and then trading Iverson for Chauncey Billups made Denver better, teams are starting to figure out what some people have been saying for a while: Allen Iverson isn’t a very good basketball player. He scores a lot because he shoots a lot, but he’s turnover-prone and subpar at rebounding. And the fact that in order for Iverson to be effective he needs to be paired with a point guard who’s big and strong enough to guard opposing two guards is a major downside.

These are three Eastern Conference guards who are scoring more efficiently than Iverson, grabbing more rebounds than Iverson, turning the ball over less than Iverson, and dishing out more assists than Iverson. Are we supposed to believe that defensive prowess is making up the difference? And this is hardly the result of an exhaustive search. And besides the guards who are better than Iverson on all four of these metrics, there are plenty of guards who are better on two or three.

J.A. Adande says it’s hard for Allen Iverson to find great chemistry:

The Detroit Pistons became the NBA’s greatest chemistry experiment when they traded Chauncey Billups to Denver for Allen Iverson in November. General manager Joe Dumars wanted to get with the trend of clearing salary cap space for the free-agent bonanza of 2010, only he couldn’t sell a Knicks-like stripping of the roster to a fan base that has seen the Pistons reach the Eastern Conference finals for six consecutive years. It’s not too often you can dump salary and get an eight-time All-Star and former MVP in return. Of course, there isn’t a single player as difficult to incorporate into a new system as Iverson.

His most successful season in Philadelphia came after the Sixers got rid of Jerry Stackhouse, Derrick Coleman, Larry Hughes and Jim Jackson. They let Iverson have the offensive stage to himself, while everyone else played defense and grabbed rebounds. The experiment with Carmelo Anthony in Denver didn’t work out. He dominated the ball too much, played at a speed no one else could keep up with, and didn’t do enough to get everyone else involved.

An alternative explanation to these chemistry-based accounts would note that Iverson simply isn’t that effective as a basketball player. Given his small size, it requires extraordinarily unusual skills for Iverson to be as effective as he is, but the fact remains that “effective as he is” just isn’t as effective as his superstar status would warrant. The successful 2001 Philadelphia 76ers team that went to the NBA finals was, at 56-26, a pretty weak Finals contender. What’s more, the Iverson-led offense wasn’t very good—13th most efficient out of 29 teams in the league. Their strength was defense, where they ranked as fifth-best, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone argue that Iverson (as opposed to, say, Dikembe Mutombo) was the lynchpin of that defense.