The Memphis Grizzlies and guard Allen Iverson recently came to an understanding that things simply weren’t going to work out. Iverson was waived, and became a free agent.
There have been rumblings that the Knicks were strongly considering adding the former All-Star and league MVP, but apparently it isn’t going to happen.
Howard Beck of the New York Times reports:
The Knicks’ pursuit of Allen Iverson is dead.
In an abrupt reversal, Knicks officials decided late Thursday not to offer Iverson a contract, putting an end to their brief flirtation, according to a person close to the deliberations.
Although team officials were highly intrigued by Iverson, a four-time scoring champion, they finally decided that he posed too great a risk because of his long history of problems on and off the court.
Team officials spent three days weighing the potential merits and pitfalls of signing Iverson, and alternately talked themselves into and then out of making the move.
Iverson is obviously seen by most teams as more trouble than he’s worth right now, but it still made sense for the Knicks to consider adding him. Although he’s best as a scorer, Iverson could have been used as a starting point guard, since Chris Duhon and rookie Toney Douglas are best suited as reserves. The Knicks currently aren’t winning very often. And they don’t really have a lot of top-level youth that would be affected by Iverson being there.
But, Iverson reportedly won’t be heading to New York.
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