Will Allen Iverson Retire?

A number of GMs I spoke with on Saturday night said they had no interested in acquiring Iverson via trade or off the waiver wire. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting him at this point,” one GM said. “Struggling teams now know he’s going to be a distraction. Contending teams have to live with the fact that Iverson puts himself above the team. Even the Clippers backed away from him this summer and Donald Sterling will do anything to sell tickets. I’m still not sure what the Grizzlies were thinking.”

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Iverson ran into similar issues last season with the Pistons. After he was demoted from his starting job to a sixth-man role, he eventually left the team and didn’t return for the rest of the season. While the official reason provided was that Iverson was rehabbing an injury, sources said later that the Pistons and Iverson had mutually agreed to part ways because he couldn’t come to grips with being demoted to the bench.

Is history repeating itself? If it is, one GM was ready to write AI’s NBA eulogy: “He’s finished in the NBA. He can go hang out with Stephon Marbury.”