Iverson for Billups

Of course, the big news from yesterday is that Detroit sent Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess to Denver for Allen Iverson. Everyone's got an opinion on this one, but the consensus seems to be -- and I'm sorry to give only ESPN links here, but I'm lazy these days -- that it's win-win: Denver gets better; Detroit clears cap space to make a run at the big-name free agents this summer and next.

Since this blog is Celtics-themed, a quick word on how this affects the Celtics. As word of the trade spread, I talked briefly to a lot of friends and read a lot of blog posts and comments, and the prevailing wisdom seemed to be that this trade helped the Celtics, since Billups was such a matchup problem for Rondo.

I'll give you a second to digest that, because it took me a second to digest it myself.

I know, right?

People are actually saying that Rondo will have an easier time guarding the Pistons now that he "gets" to check Allen Iverson instead of Chauncey Billups.

Allen Iverson. Allen fucking Iverson. AI. The Answer. The nine-time All-Star. The 2000-2001 NBA MVP. He of the 27.7 ppg scoring average. ALLEN IVERSON!

Okay, so Iverson won't have the size mismatch that Billups had on Rondo. And okay, maybe Rondo's quick enough and Iverson's old enough that Iverson doesn't have the edge in quickness the way he might have a few years ago. But there's one mismatch he does have: He's Allen Iverson, and Rajon Rondo isn't.

As tough as Billups was for Rondo to check, he wasn't the kind of guy you were terrified of, at least not these last couple of years. Iverson still is that guy. He's one of the most hard-nosed and competitive players the league has seen in years, and one of its more remarkable athletes and talents, too.

We played Denver, Iverson's old team, twice last year. In the two games (both Celtics victories), Iverson shot 31 free throws. 31! That's a Dwyane-Wade-in-the-Finals kind of statistic. Iverson's not going to abuse Rondo in the post the way Billups did, but the idea that Rondo will be more effective defensively on Iverson than he was on Billups just seems wrong.

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As a basketball fan, I'm really excited to see how Iverson works out in Detroit. Iverson has never played on a team like these Pistons. It's been said that you can't play Iverson alongside another star, because of the way he clashed with Jerry Stackhouse early in his career in Philadelphia and never found the right rhythm with Carmelo Anthony in Denver.

At the same time, when Iverson's teams have had success, it's been almost solely by virtue of his effort. Quiz time: The second-best player on the Philly team that went to the Finals and took Game 1 from the Lakers in 2001 was ...

I'm waiting...

Aaron McKie -- who, get this, won the Sixth Man of the Year award that season.

The present-day Pistons are different, a team of veterans that doesn't care who does the scoring, as long as somebody is. Rip Hamilton led the team with 17.3 points per game last year; Billups, Tayshaun Prince, and Rasheed Wallace were all in double figures. All told, ten Pistons averaged at least 6.5 per last year. Shots were almost evenly distributed among the starters; Rip got 14 a game, but Billups, Prince, and Wallace each hoisted 11 times per contest. There's no current Piston whose style Iverson will cramp.

And yet, these guys are hardly a team of role players. They are Eastern Conference finalists from last year, the only team to beat the Celtics in Boston during the playoffs. They aren't Aaron McKie and Eric Snow and George Lynch and Matt Geiger. (Betcha hadn't thought about Matt Geiger in a while!) Wallace is a four-time All-Star. Hamilton's been named to the All-Star team three times. Both he and Prince have championship rings. Iverson's got plenty of help in his new city.

The composition of the league's elite has changed even since the Pistons won their championship in 2003-2004, and certainly since Iverson took his Sixers to the Finals in 2000-2001. You probably need more than one star (or, alternatively, one star whose name is LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, or maybe Chris Paul) to be a serious contender for the chip these days, and Iverson is far enough past his prime that he won't be able to lift his team the way LeBron or Kobe can. We'll probably never know, but maybe Joe Dumars has found, too late, the right formula for success with Iverson, and these Pistons are built the way those Sixers should have been.