Self-Inflicted Wounds Sink A.I., Pistons

↵Earlier this week, Allen Iverson sounded conflicted. Well, those battles -- internal and external -- have been resolved, as A.I. will sit out the rest of the season with an undiagnosed back injury and hurt pride. Detroit, which has appeared in five straight Eastern Conference Finals, could miss the postseason. This is all bad: Iverson is a free agent whose last episode has been a complete stinker, Detroit tore down a contender for cap space but alienated its fans and best players in the process.
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↵Once Detroit traded Favorite Son Chauncey Billups for Iverson in November, could this result have been avoided? Could A.I. have sucked up his pride to accept his new bench role without complaint? Could the Pistons have sucked up their need for authority by keeping Rodney Stuckey (the New Billups) in a back-up role for the remainder of the season, or sucked up their refusal to admit defeat by trading Iverson for cap space at the deadline, or cutting him outright shortly thereafter?
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↵The way it worked out, Iverson’s career is in shambles, Detroit has to sort out its post-A.I. 2009 existence (in which Will Bynum figures heavily) on the run with the Bobcats breathing heavily, and everything is just sour. Hopefully Rip Hamilton has a short memory; he’s signed with the Pistons long-term, and he was moved to the bench before the team put Iverson into that role. Rasheed Wallace (face of the team No. 2) is a free agent, and after the Billups trade and Iverson failure no one should feel confident Sheed will be treated like the incredible performer he has been for five years. Maybe a big-time free agent within the next two seasons will alter history, but as of now that trade just looks like a big wrecking ball that didn’t actually tear down anything -- it just broke stuff and made things ugly.↵