It didn’t take long for the NBA to shaken up by a big trade this season. The Pistons and Nuggets have only played three games each right now and they decided to vastly alter their rosters. Detroit shipped former Finals MVP Chauncey Billups and serviceable big man Antonio McDyess to Denver for future Hall of Famer Allen Iverson.
So how will this affect both teams? Well here’s some winners and losers out of this deal in my opinion.
The Winners:
Allen Iverson. The Answer isn’t that practice-hating, shot-jacking selfish player he was in the past. If you ever watched all-star games, Iverson made it a point to make the players around him shine.
Carmelo Anthony: With AI gone, this is his team — completely — again. Now more sharing shots and with Billups running the point, he’ll have a good distributer in charge.
J.R. Smith: No longer coming off the bench for the Nuggets and will become an even bigger part of the offence. He was already touted as a breakout player this season and he’ll only get better now.
Detroit’s team defence: Iverson has won defensive player of the year before and hasn’t really lost as much of a step as you think he would. The Pistons will be even better with this upgrade.
The Losers:
Chauncey Billups. Mr. Clutch moves from a team that’s used to sharing the ball and had better chemistry than any team outside of the Spurs pretty much. Now he’s got to make sure that Melo gets his touches.
Rodney Stuckey, Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince: With Iverson in town, all three should see their minutes and numbers drop. AI can play almost entire games without rest and he’s more likely to take shots than Billups was. The minor plus for them is that opposing defences will have to pay a lot of attention to AI and this means more open looks for guys who run the best screens in the NBA.
The ties:
Antonio McDyess: He goes from being a role player on a playoff team to being a role player on a playoff team.
Detroit Pistons fans: The whole off-season there were stories and rumours floating around how the Pistons were trying to trade for a true superstar to shake things up. The name commonly bandied about was Anthony’s whom the Pistons passed on to take Darko back in the day. Now they have Denver’s other superstar, that’s a draw, right?