I Dislike Your Favorite Team

When the owner says on camera that "We'll trade him", there is little doubt that two things are going to happen:

1. Iverson is going to be gone from Philadelphia
2. They won't get the value back, not in real time.

Perhaps the writing was on the wall for all the folks whose job it is to follow this, but all the same, Ed Snider saying publicly, "We'll trade him" has decreased Iverson's value. And he already had a fair amount of baggage. Huge contract, struggles with coaches, etc. You never, ever, announce your intent to trade on national TV. Even if everyone knows that you want to trade him, you still say, "We'll look at the offers on the table, and if someone offers something we like, maybe we'll pursuit it."

By announcing that the team has no interest in holding onto Iverson, they've given every other team in the league the upper hand. The Vikings went through something quite similar when they made it really, really clear that they weren't going to hold onto Randy Moss. Just because Randy has sucked in Oakland doesn't mean the Vikings didn't fuck that up a bit. They had a guy that most people recognized as a top 5 receiver, a gamebreaker. What did they get back in return? Essentially, nothing.

Iverson is going to be traded for a bunch of prospects. Mark Cuban has even suggested that fucking Devin Harris is too valuable to their franchise to give up for Iverson. Devin Fucking Harris? C'mon!

The Timberwolves are apparently in the mix by offering Ricky Davis and Randy Foye. Davis is a problematic player, and Foye is a rather underwhelming (thus far) rookie.

The Celtics seem to be rumored to be willing to giving up the most, with Theo Ratliff involved to balance the salary! You might of thought that Theo Ratliff was dead. Apparently, he isn't. Though I can't believe the 76's really want to put themselves in a position where they play against Iverson every couple of weeks.

Regardless, every franchise even vaguely interested in Iverson is going to be falling over themselves to come up with the highest lowball offer.

This doesn't end well for Philadelphia. I think the best they can do is leverage this trade into multi-year first round draft picks with a franchise they perceive to be rather moribund over the next couple of years. I'd suggest that Timberwolves fit that profile, but I believe they are still paying off First Round draft picks for Marko Jaric and the like. Which is a shame. I'd love to see what Iverson could do with a talented big man like Garnett.