Iverson never The Answer for Nuggets

The Nuggets' long nightmare -- or rather short dream as it applies to Allen Iverson himself and to his wasted tenure in Denver -- is over.Reserve your NBA Finals tickets now.OK. Maybe not that. But the Nuggets are a better team today than they were Monday, a better team than they were at any time after Iverson arrived, a better team as much by subtraction as addition.As a consistent voice against Iverson, I take no great delight in having my good sense applied to the business of tattooed millionaires. And when I take the responsibility for personnel decisions on any sports franchise, I will first take the salary.It was always clear that Iverson would be forever Iverson and exactly not what was needed for the further glory of the Nuggets and Carmelo Anthony. And the fortunes of the Nuggets and Melo are as connected as foam and espresso.Anyone watching a Nuggets game could see that Iverson and Anthony did not work, never mind someone coaching a Nuggets game, or front-officing a Nuggets game, or owner Stan Kroenke-ing a Nuggets game.Or, to quote myself from back when A.I. arrived, anyone who looks at Iverson and sees a savior ought to turn the binoculars around.This is the smartest thing the Nuggets have done since they drafted Anthony, and their custodianship of young Melo has been careless and unproductive. If Anthony was to be the centerpiece of tomorrow, as he should be, then this is at least two years too late.Anthony's off-court missteps and his on-court stagnation are, without argument, his own fault. But they can at least partly be assigned to mismanagement by the Nuggets, his lingering immaturity a product of never having to take the responsibility of leadership.Iverson merely added to it, not to mention the more important fact that the two of them together were like a single sock fighting over the same shoe.Or to put it in game wardrobe terms, they were competing headbands and arm stockings.Even had the Nuggets not acquired a genuine point guard in Chauncey Billups, had it been a wheelbarrow and a pair of work gloves, the Nuggets would have been better off.As the news tumbled through the day Monday, invariably it was dressed as the Pistons acquiring Iverson. The bigger headline was that the Nuggets unloaded Iverson. This was all pitch and no catch, not that Billups is not precisely what the Nuggets need and the return of Antonio McDyess is a reminder of an earlier Nuggets botching of a great talent.Having Iverson around was like having an exotic plant decorating a house that was not yet built. What the Nuggets need is a foundation, not an ornament.This now puts accountability squarely on Anthony, as it should have been all along, as it is with LeBron James and with Dwyane Wade, the draft mates of Melo who have taken to the task and exceeded him.It will once and for certain reveal what the Nuggets really have in Anthony, a genuine rock for the franchise or so much loose sand.The Pistons get an eye magnet, which they seem to think they want, when their NBA title and their consistent quality has never come from a flashy creature like Iverson but from their cohesion as a team, the glue of which was Billups.Ideally that is what Billups brings back home, where he played high school, college and pro, the familiarity with how team basketball works, an awareness that he is a catalyst for Anthony, not his competition. Because Billups plays real adult defense, not the nuisance gnat that Iverson could be when he cared, the Nuggets may now save as many points as Iverson gave away. Iverson will go off and be Iverson until he can no longer be, and if his undistinguished play in two games this season, plus his assorted ailments, indicate that time is soon to be, that is now the Pistons' problem and not the Nuggets'.This could be the second time the Nuggets have gotten the best of Joe Dumars, the architect of recent Pistons glory. Dumars took Serbian teenager Darko Milicic instead of Anthony in the '03 draft, leaving Melo to become whatever he has yet to become for Denver.In matters involving the Nuggets, Dumars is Joe the Bumbler.(Contact Bernie Lincicome of the Rocky Mountain News at lincicomeb(at)RockyMountainNews.com.)