DEALING IVERSON IS NO GAMBLE

December 11, 2006 --

LIVING below the filthy rich line has its advantages. For example, if you're not wealthy enough to own a big league team, you'll never be in a position to write ridiculous checks to ridiculous people.

In other words, what made Sixers' owner Ed Snider think that Allen Iverson would behave more like a responsible adult at $18 million per year - his current salary - than in 2001, when Snider paid him only $11 million per?

Friday on ESPN, Stephen A. Smith reported that Iverson, who has demanded to be traded, lately had shown more interest in being in Atlantic City than at practice.

Perfect! Trade Iverson to the Connecticut Sun, the WNBA team owned by the Mohegan Sun casino. Iverson would be a great draw on game nights. And, instead of attending practices, he can spend his time in the casino - losing his money back to the team owner.

One more thing: I'm tired of people with one-way vision and selective memories telling us that a racist sports world persists, based on the latest head count of black head coaches.

Maurice Cheeks, African-American, daily was undermined by the misdeeds - often criminal - of black players when he tried to coach the Trail Blazers. Now, Iverson has done it to him in Philly.
Cheeks, by now, might've been among the most revered coaches in the history of the NBA. The people who thus far have prevented any chance of that happening, while placing his coaching career in peril, aren't white.

While I'm not in the habit of knocking other newspapers (whose is without sin?), leave it to the New York Times to publish a sympathetic piece, Saturday, about that 201-78 Division III men's basketball game, two Saturdays ago - a piece sympathetic to the winning coach!

Rationalizations aside - the Times noted that the winner had lost its previous game and coach Garfield Yuille wanted his team to work on its pressure defense - Lincoln University (Pa.) needlessly stomped Ohio St.-Marion, a team that showed up with six players (five freshmen and its 44-year-old, play-eligible coach) after being invited as a late substitute for a team that cancelled.

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