Iverson to Detroit; Billups, McDyess to Denver

Allen Iverson is headed to Detroit.

On Monday, the Denver Nuggets traded the 33-year-old, 13 year NBA veteran guard -- who happens to be in the final year of a $21.9 million dollars contract -- to the Detroit Pistons for guard Chauncey Billups, forward Antonio McDyess, and Senegalese center Cheikh Samb.

NBA Trade Deadline Passes Without Much Activity

Outside of the three team trade that saw Ben Wallace get shipped to Cleveland, no major trades were made before the NBA trade deadline passed last night.

There were, however, some minor (very minor) trades that went down before the deadline.

Here's a link to the specifics about those trades: NBA trade details.

Ben Wallace Traded to Cleveland

With just hours left before the NBA trade deadline, Chicago has sent veteran big men Ben Wallace and Joe Smith packing. In part of a three team trade between Chicago, Cleveland and Seattle, Chicago sends Wallace and Smith to Cleveland. In exchange, Chicago receives Larry Hughes, Drew Gooden, Cedric Simmons and Shannon Brown.

Cleveland now adds Wallace, Smith, Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak -- while only losing Gooden and Hughes -- to a core team that reached the NBA Finals in 2007.

Outside of Kobe Bryant, LeBron James is probably the most talented and most reliable "go to guy" in the league. Wallace, who has a wealth of playoff and NBA Finals' experience, should give Cleveland some much needed interior toughness, defense and rebounding. And while Gooden was a good post scorer for Cleveland, Smith's offensive production at the power forward position should, essentially, neutralize Gooden's loss. Plus, Szczerbiak gives Cleveland a reliable perimeter shooter at the 3.

The Celtics are clearly the favorite team to win the East. But Cleveland's position whould seem to be be strengthened by today's trade.

Drive and Dish Tidbits

By Trashtalk Superstar

It's mid February, it's 10 degrees in Chicago, the second half of the NBA season has officially begun, college basketball's regular season is heading into its stretch run, and Drive and Dish presents another installation of the ever popular Drive and Dish Tidbits:

1.) North Carolina coach Roy Williams has taken umbrage with remarks made by Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, with regard to "certain" college basketball teams' reporting of injuries.

Much has been made by the media -- both local (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill) and national -- of the injuries that have plagued several members of the North Carolina basketball team this season. On Sunday, Krzyzewski stated that Duke doesn't discuss injuries, "unlike other schools."

Williams interpreted Krzyzewski's statement to be a backhanded jab at him and at his North Carolina program.

On his Monday radio show, Williams opined that an unnamed coach should "coach (his) own damn team, I'll coach my team."

And in a Tuesday news conference, Williams revisited the topic: "It's not like I'm getting a dadgum plane and flying it around to say, 'Roy fell against a wall and banged his nose' or anything." Williams continued, "We have to do those things (talk about injuries) and everybody's hurt. But there's different stages of being hurt."

"If you're hurt and missing games, that's not exactly like having a hangnail. And so we do have some people that are getting hurt and missing games. I don't think that somebody should say we're putting it in front of the public."

Apparently, Coach K's comments really got under Roy Williams' skin. According to the linked article:

When a reporter attempted to ask a follow-up question, Williams said he didn't want to discuss the comments further and have "battles through the media." But when the news conference ended, Williams came back to the topic once more.

"I said before we played Duke it's impossible to have any more respect than I do for Mike," Williams said, "but I felt like that comment was aimed towards us."


After thoroughly researching the subject matter, and following hours of intense deliberation, the Drive and Dish editorial staff has arrived at the following revelation: Coach K and Roy must really not like each other as much as they say they do.


2.) ESPN's Pat Forde says that a "source close to the unsettled coaching situation at Indiana University" has told him it's likely that Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson will be suspended "for the purpose of future termination."

Drive and Dish has heard this before. Our official position is: we'll believe it when we see it.


3.) Speaking of the Indiana/Sampson scandal, Toki Wartooth at Paint the Town Orange reminds readers that Indiana knew exactly what they were getting when the hired Sampson in 2006.

IU was well aware that Sampson had a history of violating NCAA bylaws at Oklahoma. They simply didn't care.

Last Thursday, Drive and Dish discussed Sampson's history, his hiring at Indiana, and his shady behavior since arriving in Bloomington.

Indiana used to be one of the cleanest programs in major college basketball.

But integrity has been in short supply in the IU Athletic Department as of late.

Hopefully, Indiana will have to pay a price for their indifference toward the following of NCAA bylaws (just to be clear: Drive and Dish likes Indiana University and IU basketball [and we've got several friends and associates who are IU alumni] ... we just don't like Kelvin Sampson, or what Indiana basketball has become under his stewardship).


4. ) Also at Paint the Town Orange: despite being a few days old, Mr./Ms. Wartooth's post game account of the Penn State / Illinois game provides a great synopsis of Illinois' 2007/08 season.


5.) Tuesday's upset victory over #16 Drake marked Bradley's sixth game of the season against the four Division I basketball programs from the state of Iowa. Bradley has now defeated all four of Iowa's Division I teams.

Bradley beat Iowa State (65-56) Nov. 14 at Carver Arena in Peoria, beat Iowa (67-56) Nov. 23 at the South Padre Island Thanksgiving Tournament and beat Northern Iowa (75-73) Jan. 12 in Cedar Falls, IA.

According to the official website of the Bradley Athletic Department:

"Of the states that boast multiple NCAA Division I institutions, Bradley has not swept every Division I team a state has to offer since beating both Arizona (67-59) and Arizona State (92-85) during the 1963-64 season (Northern Arizona was not yet playing Division I men’s basketball at the time)."


6.) Drive and Dish doesn't like to discuss recruiting, but since we've been so Duke/North Carolina-centric lately (and since hardcore Duke fans account for a significant portion of the Drive and Dish community), we'll pass along the following recruiting buzz: Duke appears to be the likely destination for 6'11" power forward Mason Plumlee, of the Christ School in Arden, NC.


7.) More Duke stuff: DeMarcus Nelson takes viewers on a tour of Duke's practice facilities at Dukeblueplanet.com.


8.) As the NBA trade deadline approaches, two league sources have indicated that Denver is in "full pursuit" of troubled Sacramento forward Ron Artest.

Kidd Trade Final

After nearly a week in the balance, the Jason Kidd trade from the Nets to Dallas has been finalized.

Jason Kidd will return to Dallas, where he began his NBA career 13 years ago.

Along with Kidd, the Nets will send forwards Malik Allen and Antoine Wright to Dallas. In turn, Dallas will send he Nets second year point guard Devin Harris, center DeSagana Diop, small forward Trenton Hassell, guard Maurice Ager, forward Keith Van Horn (who has been out of the league for two years) via sign-and-trade, first-round draft picks in 2008 and 2010 and $3 million in cash.

Kidd Trade to Dallas Appears to be Back On

Last Thursday, Jason Kidd appeared to be on his way to Dallas, as Dallas and the Nets agreed to a blockbuster trade that would have sent Kidd to Dallas in exchange for Devin Harris, Jerry Stackhouse and other considerations.

But the trade stalled as Devean George initially blocked the trade and, later, some errant comments by Jerry Stackhouse allegedly caused the NBA to reconsider its approval of the deal.

However, today the Dallas Morning News reports that the Jason Kidd trade is back on.

What's Holding Up the Jason Kidd Trade?

Yesterday, Mark Cuban and Dallas worked a trade in order to acquire Jason Kidd from the Nets. But Dallas' Devean George exercised his "Larry Bird" rights, and nixed the deal. Dallas then attempted to convince George to change his mind.

But something is preventing the trade from going through.

Is it George? Or is the NBA objecting to the trade because of comments made by Jerry Stackhouse?