Pistons acquire Iverson, send Billups and McDyess to Denver
Nuggets Expected To Trade Iverson To Pistons
The shakeup promised by Detroit Pistons president Joe Dumars after last season's Eastern Conference finals has materialized just two games into the new season.
The Pistons and the Denver Nuggets have finalized a trade that sends guard Allen Iverson to Detroit in exchange for Pistons mainstays Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess.
Young center Cheikh Samb, selected by the Los Angeles Lakers for the Pistons with the 51st overall pick in the 2006 draft, will also be going to Denver in the deal, reports ESPN The Magazine's Ric Bucher.
It remains to be seen how McDyess' status is resolved, as the 34-year-old reportedly has no interest in playing for any team other than the Pistons, meaning McDyess could choose to retire or negotiate a contract buyout with Denver.
Dumars put the entire Pistons roster on notice after they lost to Boston in the East finals, saying that there "are no sacred cows" on his team and vowing to consider trading anyone -- even a major contributor to the Pistons' 2004 title run like Billups -- in addition to firing coach Flip Saunders and replacing Saunders with the untested Michael Curry.
The Pistons could not find a workable deal over the summer after talking with numerous teams -- Denver included, according to NBA front-office sources -- but it emerged then that Billups, MVP of the 2004 Finals, was the most likely Piston to be dealt.
With Denver's desire to acquire a dependable point guard growing, Dumars moved quickly to finally consummate this deal with the Nuggets, who acquired Iverson from Philadelphia shortly before Christmas in 2006 but failed in two attempts to get out of the first round with a three-man core of Iverson, Carmelo Anthony and Marcus Camby.
Camby was jettisoned to the Los Angeles Clippers in a straight salary dump in July for luxury-tax purposes. After playing sparingly in the preseason, Iverson was stripped of his captaincy last week and averaged just over 13 shots per game as the Nuggets opened with a 1-2 mark.
The Nuggets will be hoping now that the homecoming Billups, a Denver native who starred collegiately at the University of Colorado, meshes better with Anthony, given that he's more of a natural point guard than Iverson. Yet there is some risk for the Nuggets, since Billups is 32 and has three more seasons left on his deal after this one, with the four years totaling in excess of $50 million.
Both Billups and McDyess were Nuggets in the 1990s.
The Pistons, meanwhile, will undoubtedly contend that their risks are mitigated by the fact that Iverson, who turned 33 in June, is in the final year of his contract at $20.8 million.
Dumars loves to gamble on players who are reputed to possess as many minuses as pluses, as seen with the trade-deadline acquisition of Rasheed Wallace in 2004 which spurred Detroit to its first championship since Dumars was playing in 1990. If this gamble doesn't work, swapping Billups for Iverson would give Detroit financial flexibility to pursue a more aggressive makeover next summer, with the highly regarded Rodney Stuckey staying put as the long-term cornerstone of the Pistons' backcourt.
