I’ve been thinking for a little while now about doing ANOTHER Allen Iverson post defending the man who has entertained us and dominated the NBA for 13+ years. But every time I sat down to do so, it turned into more of a paper or brief chronicalling the journey of Allen Iverson throughout his career. I was going to then call it the “Allen Iverson Defense Paper”, but I didn’t want to bore you with all the little details and the minutia.
Then I stumbled across this post today on ‘The Onion’, discussing the Allen Iverson/Memphis Grizzlies standoff. For those of you that are not familiar with The Onion, you should familiarize yourself. It is one of the funniest websites on the entire net. They take sarcasm, wrap it up with the look and feel of geniune news reporting, and make you laugh for hours on end. So you can see where this is going. There are lots of jokes to be made about the Iverson/Memphis situation. But after reading their report and considering their sarcasm, the reason the premise works so well and is so funny is because there is such a strong element of truth in their message. So much so, that I hope Chris Wallace and the rest of the Grizzlies management take a moment and read the post, word for word. Think carefully gentleman. Don’t be afraid to back down. Be the bigger person. Do it for yourselves, for the franchise, for the FANS IN MEMPHIS damnit!
Why?
Because at the end of the day, there IS NOT EVEN ONE player on the Memphis Grizzlies that is a better option as a starter and scorer than Allen Iverson. And if someone tries to convince me that Rudy Gay or Zach Randolph is a better option on ANY given possession, so help me….i’ll reach through this computer and…..
Okay so maybe I won’t do that, but c’mon. Iverson is still one of the most potent offensive threats in this league, and Memphis is one of the worst teams right now (1-7 start) on both ends of the floor. So have a laugh below at this post, and when you’re reading the sarcasm of The Onion article think about what makes it so damn funny….
MEMPHIS, TN—Though Allen Iverson has taken an indefinite leave of absence and even threatened to retire because of his current bench role, the Grizzlies organization maintained its stance Wednesday that the 1-7 team has five better players than the four-time NBA scoring champion and 2001 league MVP. “We’re really confident about the decision to put Mike Conley, Zach Randolph, Rudy Gay, O.J. Mayo, and Marc Gasol on floor instead of Iverson,” general manager Chris Wallace said of his starters, who combined have appeared in 10 fewer NBA All-Star games than the former No. 1 draft pick. “And I can’t forget about our sixth man, Marcus Williams. He’s been coming off the bench and putting up 4.4 points a game. He wowed us when he scored seven the other night.” Wallace added that Iverson, whose 27.0 points-per-game average is the sixth best of all-time, has only 13 years of professional basketball experience compared to the 15 years of the Grizzlies’ entire starting lineup.
