It looks increasingly like Pat Riley's team is on the floor (so to speak -- one of them is in rehab). Free agent and former person of interest Allen Iverson has announced (via Twitter, naturally) that he'll be moving his circus to Memphis:
God Chose Memphis as the place that I will continue my career.
I met with Mr. Heinsley, Chris Wallace and my next head coach Lionel Hollins...I feel that they are committed to developing a winner and I know that I can help them to accomplish that. I feel that I can trust them.
God may have chosen Memphis, but apparently He used 29 counts of rejection to do it and hates Allen Iverson: Miami and Charlotte showed a little interest in AI, but it was only the basement-dwelling Grizzlies who offered the polarizing star out of 30 NBA teams.
Riley went so far as to ask Iverson's camp to check with him before accepting Memphis' reported standing offer of one year, $3.5 million, according to the Herald -- but he clearly didn't want him all that much.
"I don't want to waste another roster spot on a point guard that's never going to play," he said.
What does it mean for the Heat? On Tuesday Riley said three things of interest, the first being that the only move he plans to make is to add at least one more big man by the start of training camp with a non-guaranteed, minimum contract. That could be Blazers free-agent power forward Shavlik Randolph, who received a tryout recently.
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The second is that "the only way we're going to be able to add is to subtract. If something is going to happen, it probably happens via a trade." It doesn't appear anything's in the works, but fans may want to grab onto Udonis Haslem's ankles just in case.
The third and perhaps most semi-alarming, even to people who wanted Iverson (ahem), is that Riley is re-thinking his plans for 2010. Instead of signing one giant star to complement Dwyane Wade, "maybe we want to sign three or four guys," he said. "We have a chance to do something that no other team is going to be able to do." Fire sale? It's already hot enough down here.
As for The Answer, there clearly weren't many for him if he's resorted to positing Memphis as a contender anytime soon in a conference with San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, and New Orleans (perhaps that's why he's laughing so hard up there). When you're not willing to play behind Mario Chalmers, well, you've got to put a grizzly face on whatever you can get.
