Three years ago, the 76ers and the suits at Comcast-Spectacor spit Allen Iverson out like a piece of gum that had turned from sugary-sweet to flavorless to bitter beyond tolerance.
After a decade of enabling and covering for their superstar, the folks who worked in the Wachovia Center offices freely shared their horror stories, giddily relieved that the reign of terror was over.
Now Iverson is back, and Sixers president Ed Stefanski says he'll be a good influence and, furthermore, will play defense.
"He's going to have to buckle down, too, because we all have to play defense," Stefanski said in a conference call with reporters yesterday. "It's not just about scoring."
Oh, my. Such charming naivete.
Stefanski kept using the phrase "basketball decision." With Lou Williams out for somewhere around 30 games, Stefanski said, the Sixers simply had gotten the best available free-agent guard to take his place.
No one can argue that anyone more talented or accomplished than Iverson was available. But there's no way to make what is purely a "basketball decision" on Allen Iverson. Not in Philadelphia, there isn't. There's just way too much history.
In a sense, that's what makes this very bad basketball decision - another in a long series for this franchise - grotesquely compelling.
When he was traded away three years ago, Iverson became merely the latest in a long line of great athletes who left Philadelphia on unfortunate terms.
From Wilt Chamberlain and Dick Allen in the 1960s, to Reggie White and Randall Cunningham and Charles Barkley in the '90s, to Scott Rolen and Eric Lindros and Curt Schilling in the '00s - this city leads every league in squandered superstars.
Iverson now becomes the first of the bunch to return since Allen came back to the Phillies in the mid-1970s, at age 33, after an exile that took him to three other teams. It sounds similar, but the world has changed an awful lot since 1975. Google it if you don't believe me.
