Allen Iverson is now a Detroit Piston. And he’ll (most likely) make his debut tonight in Toronto.

Wow. I did not see that one coming… at all. This trade pretty much stunned me. I know Joe Dumars said he was going to shake things up, but that was five months ago! And they brought in a new coach, so I thought that was it.

But to trade your team leader for one of the most non-team-oriented players in the sport… only three games into the season? Wow.

Financially, the trade makes perfect sense for Detroit. They’ve now got Iverson’s contract and Rasheed Wallace’s contract of the books this summer; that’s like $35 million. Now, it would be better if they had that money in 2010, but if they manage the money well this summer, they’ll be players in the LeBron-Wade-Bosh sweepstakes.

Does it make sense on the floor? Well… I’m not sure. Is Rodney Stuckey ready to be a full time point guard? Or are they just gonna leave Iverson as PG (because that’s always worked). Unlike Billups, who had good instincts to know when to pick his shots, Iverson is a volume shooter; how are there gonna be enough shots for him, Hamilton, Rasheed and the rest? They’ve got the firepower, that’s for sure… but can they manage the personalities?

For the Nuggets, the trade looks good on the basketball court; I think Billups and Carmelo Anthony will play well together. They’ll still miss Camby, but, with those two and JR Smith, they’ve still got the scorers, and hopefully, a real game manager.

But financially? I’m not sure about that. Billups has three years left on his contract, and even if they buy out McDyess, they’ll still have to pay him a big chunk of change (for no return). Not that I care about the Nuggets finances either way, but for a team that dumped its best defensive player (Camby) because they couldn’t afford him, this seems like a strange move.

Oh well. How does this affect the Raptors? They now have to face Iverson three or four times a year, and Iverson has had, um, some success against us in the past - he’s got a higher scoring average against the Raps than any other player.

It might also mean Detroit changes its style to a more up-tempo, running/scoring team, rather than the half-court team they’ve been recently; the Raptors, with their short bench and somewhat unathletic roster, aren’t a run-and-gun team. Though of course, they’ve done OK so far against supposed high-scoring teams in the Warriors and Bucks.

For tonight specifically, assuming Iverson plays, it could be a problem for the Raptors. The emotion of having a new face oftentimes carries teams a long away in the first game together; everyone’s just excited to be playing with the new guys.

However, that’s usually in a situation where a team is struggling, or stuck in a rut, or having chemistry problems. Fortunately for Toronto, that’s not the case here - Detroit was playing fine and had some of the best chemistry in the NBA. If anything, Detroit players might be unhappy - Rip Hamilton hasn’t spoken to the press since the trade happened - and that might lead to chemistry issues on the court.

Those issues aside, how do the players match up? Well, if Iverson starts at point guard, he could cause all kinds of problems for Jose Calderon. He’s simply too fast for Jose to guard, and Parker will have his hands full guarding Richard Hamilton. Rip has destroyed the Raptors in the past; hopefully, the fact that he’s got better defense behind him means Parker will play Hamilton tighter more on the perimeter.

Tayshaun Prince has developed an excellent offensive game to accompany his solid defense, and he’ll be a handful for Jamario Moon. Moon’s got a very similar body type to Prince, they’re both tremendously athletic, but Prince has a much higher basketball IQ - he’s one of those guys who always seems to be in the right place at the right time. Hopefully Moon remembers what rebounding is tonight.

Up front, the Pistons have Rasheed Wallace and will presumably go with Amir Johnson. This will be the matchup to watch in my mind. Rasheed Wallace has absolutely abused Chris Bosh in the past; he’s used his size to get inside and his touch to get Bosh away from the basket. So will the Raptors put O’Neal on Wallace? That might prevent Wallace from getting too much inside but it’ll also pull Jermaine away from the hoop. Still, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have Wallace launching threes - and being 22 feet away from the offensive glass - than scoring in the lane.

Johnson is an up and coming player, with a similar game to Bosh - although maybe more of a high-flyer. Bosh should be able to check him no problem.

At the other end, Johnson will have to guard one of the two - and whoever it is had better take advantage of their size and experience advantage. I would imagine Wallace will guard Bosh, if only because, again, he’s given Bosh fits in the past. Besides, O’Neal hasn’t proven his offense is all there yet - why not stick the young guy on him and make O’Neal beat you, instead of Bosh?

The Pistons bring Jason Maxiell and Walter Hermann off the bench, and Maxiell’s tweener size has given the Raptors problems in the past. Hopefully Bargnani’s improved physical play will offset that, and hopefully, either he or Kapono will have the offensive game going tonight.

Rodney Stuckey could be the big x-factor. The Raps had some trouble with him last year, he’s got size and speed that they can’t really match. Then again, the defense is much improved over last year.

In case you can’t tell, I’m really not sure how this one’s gonna go. I’m just gonna hope that the home crowd works in favour of the Raptors, and that the trade has a negative effect on Detroit’s chemistry, and that these things lead the Raptors to victory. Raps by 10.

Tags: Allen Iverson, Chris Bosh, Detroit Pistons, Rasheed Wallace, Toronto Raptors

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 10:31 am and is filed under Game Previews, Toronto Raptors.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.