Posted by Os Davis in all, alternate history, basketball, video | 1 Comment
Insights from parallel universe: Iverson goes to Olympiacos
Sometimes seemingly minor incidents in the grander scheme of sports history are exactly the opposite, for who can truly know the axis upon which events revolve?
Going into the 2009-10 NBA season, a handful of European news outlets tersely reported a rumor that those freewheeling, free-spending Angelopoulos Brothers running the Olympiacos basketball club had offered one Allen Iverson a huge chunk of change to come play in Greece with the Reds.
Yours truly’s speculation then was that ultimately substituting A.I. for Linas Kleiza – for as things turned out in the market last year, Kleiza was the highest-end free-agent the Brothers could coerce to jump the pond to play hoops – would have gotten the Reds off to the exact same start, namely near the top of the EΣAKE and Euroleague tables. (After all, i argued then, there’s nothing even A.I. could’ve done about the H1N1 that struck several members of the club numb for weeks.)
Now that this unfortunate season for both Iverson and Olympiacos are in the books, we have more details to expand the parallel universe of 2009-10 basketball.
In our universe, Iverson would later confirm the rumor of the Olympiacos, somewhat derisively dismissing the idea in an afterthought. From Scoop Jackson’s extensive interview with Iverson for ESPN.com:
Iverson: I just love playing basketball on the highest level. Just wanting to play, just the passion for the game. Yeah, I could have [shut it down], but I wanted to play so much. Which is why I never thought about retiring. But if I would have been driven to [retiring] then I would have been cool with it, you know. Because there’s always got to be life after basketball. I want to do other things in my life, and I know basketball is not going to last forever; I understand that. But at times, I’ll be honest, it was frustrating because I really think from last year everybody threw everything but the kitchen sink at me. They probably threw that at me, too. I could have gone overseas, made $10 million or something like that. I thought about it. Actually, my wife wanted to [go]. To get away from here. It wasn’t about the money – she’s got enough money. But she just wanted to get away, do something else. Something to make her and my relationship a whole lot better – we could bond, you know how it is. All the traveling all over the place, that takes a toll on your marriage – not doing that could have made our relationship a lot tighter. My relationship with my kids would be better, because I’d be there a lot more. You know, it just seemed like, to her, [going to Europe] would have been a good thing to do. But I took this money and stayed. I could have gone somewhere else for more money…
Jackson: What stopped you [from going]?
Iverson: C’mon, Scoop … the timing. Like, I would have just had to up and grab my kids and family and then just – “Boom!” – [we’re] gone to, like, Greece. C’mon.
Instead, A.I. got with the mighty Memphis Grizzlies, decided he didn’t want to come off the bench for a loser with little future prospect of success (imagine that) and bailed. Shipped to the Philadelphia 76ers, he bailed there, too. Both of these teams ended up with lottery picks and The Answer left nary no effect. His sad stat line read 13.8 points on under 42% overall shooting in 30.9 minutes played per game in 28 games.
The verdict: Clearly the alternate universe 76ers and Grizzlies would have fared about the same as our universe’s. Certainly the shifted physics in this sector would have changed the course of pingpong balls* to produce a different selection order on NBA Draft Day, but these two teams were simply hapless and helpless in ’09-10 with or without the trace of Iverson.
Meanwhile, Olympiacos fell short in both the Euroleague championship game and the EΣAKE finals, the latter of which ended insanely egregiously and not necessarily due fully to the Reds – more on this momentarily. Kleiza turned in an MVP-level season in Euroleague play and bagged the top player award in Greece; his play in the clutch was maddeningly inconsistent, his existence on the court about as corporeal as a Ghostbusters refugee.
The missing piece for Olympiacos this season? In BuckBokai’s opinion, That Guy. That Guy who elevates his game into fifth gear when it matters: a unique phenomenon on any level to be sure, but an element absolutely essential to the great basketball teams.
A.I. is a That Guy guy, and BuckBokai still maintains that a combo of Iverson and Josh Childress would have produced dynamite results: Imagine Childress essentially acting as a surrogate Answer with his cutting and slashing moves to the hoop under Iverson’s direction at guard. Dude.
Of course, in our universe, messy life would surely have interfered with beautiful basketball in gorgeous Greece. Quickly following Iverson’s washout in Philly, rumors gave lip service to stuff about a seriously ill daughter plus A.I.’s alcoholism and/or gambling addiction. The last we heard on The Answer was poor Jackson pleading for someone to intervene in the man’s life.
Would the possibility of a new beginning in Europe and a couple of Continental titles have cleared Iverson’s mind? Or would things have gotten really ugly after Iverson decided to ditch the Olympiacos contract after three weeks of binging on ouzo? Impossible to say, of course, until (to riff on Douglas Adams) someone finds a way to travel at right angles to reality: That’s the beauty/tragedy of alternate universes.
BuckBokai tells you this, though: If Iverson *had* been around, this no way this would have happened in the same form.
At least BuckBokai likes to think so, anyway.
And now, as they say in Greece, “Είμαι υποτίθεται ότι είναι ένας παίκτης franchise και είμαστε εδώ μιλάμε για την πρακτική.”
*Speaking metaphorically here, of course. The random order determined before Draft Day is apparently now done by computer. Or David Stern just makes one up.