Allen Iverson is expected to be waived at some point today after not being placed on waivers by the league deadline, giving great indication that he and the Memphis Grizzlies are parting ways. The 34 year-old guard began complaining during his debut against the Sacramento Kings. Even though he just came back from injury (torn left hamstring), Iverson expected to start immediately and receive heavy minutes.

The Answer had some choice words for the organization following the contest. “Yeah, I’ll be disappointed (if he’s a sub this season),” said Iverson. “I’m not a reserve basketball player. I’ve never been a reserve all my life and I’m not going to start looking at myself as a reserve. … To answer the question, ‘No, I’m not a bench player. I’m not a sixth man. Go look at my resume and that will show you I’m not a sixth man.”

The Grizzlies will be forced to pay only a fraction of his $3 million contract. So far not many teams have jumped to get Iverson after his quick fall out with Memphis. The New York Knicks have already announced a possible interest in the veteran.

Veteran guard Allen Iverson has been waiting all summer as a free agent, but has just recently received the official call from the Memphis Grizzlies.  Pending a last minute snag, the Grizzlies have offered Iverson a one-year $3.5 million deal with incentives to make the deal larger. 

Iverson through his Twitter page has stated “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.” He continued to express his enthusiasm by saying “I feel that they are committed to developing a winner and I know that I can help them to accomplish that.  I feel I can trust them.”

After below average years put in with the Denver Nuggets and Detroit Pistons, Iverson will look to really focus in and bring up the young talent surrounding him.  The Grizzlies besides Iverson will rely on Mike Conley Jr., O.J. Mayo, and Rudy Gay.  The franchise heading into their 2009-2010 campaign produced a very successful off-season, adding center Hasheem Thabeet and forwards Sam Young and DeMarre Carroll in the NBA draft.  They have also acquired forward Zach Randolph from the Clippers this summer.

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The Memphis Grizzlies have officially extended an offer to free agent veteran guard Allen Iverson.  The press first caught wind of the news through Iverson’s twitter page, and it was later confirmed by GM Chris Wallace.  “We’re heading into the home stretch before the season, and we have had interest in Allen all summer,” Wallace said. “We’ve been in touch on a fairly consistent basis and had dialogue with his agent, Leon Rose, since the beginning of free agency.”

Although the Grizzlies have already formulated a set deal for the 10-time All-Star, there are still other teams in the picture.  Charlotte Bobcats head coach Larry Brown has been speaking with Iverson about teaming up again.  The Miami Heat and LA Clippers have also had conversations with him but have a more difficult route in signing the free agent with the luxury tax in place.  The deal from Memphis will likely be the biggest contract Iverson will see, knowing the franchise is around $3.5 million under the salary cap going into this season.

The former Piston was also a member of the Denver Nuggets and Philadelphia 76ers earlier in his career.  Last season between Denver and Detroit he only played 57 games, averaging a career-low 17.5 points per game.

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With the NBA Finals over, the last big event before free agency is just 12 days away. The 2009 NBA Draft is almost here! Expect the Clippers to use their first pick to find Baron Davis a suitable sidekick. The Memphis Grizzlies, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Sacramento Kings picks after. With a much-hyped draft class, speculation and mock drafts are flying around. The only definite is that the following players are on the draft board:

Blake Griffin - Oklahoma: Athletic PF that draws comparisons to Carlos Boozer and Amare Stoudamire. Currently projected as the likely #1 pick.

Ricky Rubio - Spain: Rubio dazzled in the gold medal game at the 2008 Olympics. While some don’t feel the PG utilizes his size well, a number of teams are working to draft the young phenom.

Hasheem Thabeet - Connecticut:  Thabeet helped lead UCONN to the NCAA title game, but fell shortof a championship. The 7-3 center puts up solid defense, but poses some questions on offense.

Stephen Curry - Davidson: Led last year’s Cinderella Davidson squad.  Proficient scorer with speed. Some of the hype fell to the wayside this year, but still a solid option at PG.

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Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen were sighted boarding the team’s plane to San Antonio for tomorrow night’s game against the Spurs.  Garnett has been injured since February 19th and Allen recently suffered a hyper extended elbow last Tuesday against the Bulls.

This will mark the first time Garnett has traveled with the team since his injury.  Celtics head coach Doc Rivers said they are going to take Garnett’s possible return day by day.  With this said, for the past two practices Garnett has been involved in successful work outs and could be ready to go Friday.  After San Antonio the C’s will head to Memphis, Tennessee for a Saturday night game against the Grizzlies.

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Less then one month after the Boston Celtics captured their 17th NBA Championship, many teams around the league are already beginning to try and make some adjustments so that they can put themselves in contention for a title run. Many teams have begun to sign their lottery draft picks and several free agents are close to signing multi-year deals with new teams.

It is expected that the Golden State Warriors will sign Corey Maggette to a five year deal estimated right around $50 million dollars. Last season, Maggette averaged 22.1 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game for the struggling Los Angeles Clippers. At 6-foot-6, great speed and a soft perimeter touch, he would fit right into Golden State coach Don Nelson’s run and gun style of play.

The Philadelphia 76ers continue to make moves, freeing up salary cap space which many suspect is so that they can make a strong offer to Elton Brand to come and play for them. On Tuesday the 76ers traded away forward Rodney Carney, a future first round draft pick and reserve forward Calvin Booth to the Minnesota Timberwolves for a future second round draft pick and $2.8 million dollars. The Sixers now have another $2 million in salary cap space to add to the $11 million in space available that they hope will land them the post player in Brand that they desperately need to become a contender in the East.

First round draft pick O.J. Mayo (third pick overall) signed a multi-year contract with the Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday. The Grizzlies pulled off an eight player trade the night of the NBA draft to acquire the rights to the third pick and land Mayo. Memphis also announced the signing of Darrell Arthur, the 27th overall selection of this year’s draft.

The number one and two picks of this years’ NBA Draft have been in the spotlight in the early action of the NBA’s summer league games. Michael Beasley (2nd pick in the draft) scored 28 points in the first game of the summer season for the Miami Heat but then followed it up with only a 9 point outing in the second game a night later. Derek Rose of the Chicago Bulls (1st pick in the draft) scored 10 points in his NBA summer league debut against Miami and Beasley and then followed it up with 9 points in his second game against the Indiana Pacers.

In other league news, the NBA set the new salary cap at $58,680,000 for the 2008-2009 season. This year’s cap went up by more than $3 million dollars over last season’s, which was set at $55.630 million. The minimum team salary for 2008-09 was 75 percent of the cap, or $44.010 million.

The 2008 NBA trade deadline is over and has left some teams feeling confident about making a run into the playoffs, and left others wondering how long it will take the potential talent they traded for to actually turn into the superstars they were hoping they might become.

Sorry Timberwolves fans, but that’s just never going to happen for you.

Unlike years past, the league saw some big names relocate from struggling franchises onto playoff contending teams which is not only great for those organization’s playoff hopes, but its great for the NBA as well. Maybe for one month now we can forget about how overpaid Isaiah Thomas and the Knicks are and focus on the fact that there is actually a race going on in the West this year for the top spot in the playoffs, and the best team is the league, the Celtics, are coming out of the East. Who would have thought?

A huge winner in this years’ trade deadline has to be the L.A. Lakers. Landing Pau Gasol makes them instantly a Western Conference finalist contender. The Lakers have gone 8-1 since they acquired the big man, and that is without a healthy C Andrew Bynum. Pretty much all they had to do to get Gasol was give up Kwame Brown, yea remember him, first pick in the 2001 draft (HA!). That may go down as the worst first pick in the history of the NBA draft, but regardless, dishing him out to Memphis was brilliant because his contract expires at the end of the year anyway.

Another huge trade that was really unexpected, and at this point no one knows how it will pan out for either team, was the Shaquille O’Neal trade to the Phoenix Suns. Shaq is averaging career lows in points and rebounds, hasn’t been completely healthy for two years, and is going to be 36-years old in a few weeks. The Suns gave up former all-star power forward Shawn Marion and a talented point-guard in Marcus Banks to the Miami Heat in exchange for O’Neal. The former league MVP leaves the team with the worst record in the NBA to join the Suns who have the 2nd best record in the West. If neither team makes out in the deal, the person who did was Shaq.

Ben Wallace has found a new place to call home… again. The defensive specialist joins Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers after he was dealt from the Chicago Bulls for four players in total including Larry Hughes and Drew Gooden. The Cavs also traded for Wally Szczerbiak, Delonte West and Joe Smith so the team chemistry may be off for a few weeks, but hopefully they begin to click before the playoffs. The moves they made are definitely an upgrade, but you may not see the results this season.

The biggest name to move right before the deadline may have been future hall of fame point guard Jason Kidd. Kidd was traded to the Dallas Mavericks in an eight player deal that left the New Jersey Nets hurting…even more then they had already been, but with $3 million dollars more in their pockets. The deal also left the Mavs excited for the second half of the season to get underway with Kidd running the show. Mavericks GM Mark Cuban finally got something he wanted, if he couldn’t buy the Cubs, well at least he could buy Jason Kidd… like Jay-Z really needs the money!

Some other moves that were made that wouldn’t be considered blockbuster deals, but are definitely worth mentioning include the San Antonio Spurs landing PF/C Kurt Thomas from the Seattle Supersonics. It’s not a flashy name, but a good move for the Spurs who needed some more size to compete with Shaq and Gasol who they will now be seeing more often playing in the West.

Mike Bibby was traded to the Atlanta Hawks which is an upgrade at point guard from Tyronne Lue who is now with the Sacramento Kings, and the move shows that Atlanta still has signs of life in them and wants to try and sneak in the eight and final spot for the Eastern Conference playoffs. They will need to play better basketball on the road where they are currently at a pathetic 6-19, but Bibby’s leadership could help turn that around.

So when all is said and done with, who were the biggest winner and loser after this year’s trading deadline?

Biggest Loser: The Minnesota Timberwolves – They traded away Gerald Green whom they had just traded for in the off-season when they gave away Kevin Garnett to the Celtics. It seems like this team has been rebuilding for ten years now, and its not going to stop anytime soon.

Biggest Winner: The Los Angeles Lakers – Pau Gasol is going to take a little pressure off of Kobe Bryant, help their team defense, and be the spark to drive the Lakers to the top spot in the Pacific Division. They didn’t give up hardly anything, and they became instant contenders with his addition.

The final two months of the NBA season are going to be filled with lots of action so make sure to contact Ace Ticket if you want to be there and a part of it all!