Iverson's Final Answer

By Marc Stein
ESPN.com
Iverson
Iverson

The day before Thanksgiving seemed to begin with some rare and genuine hope for Allen Iverson.

There on the pages of the morning's Boston Herald were some unexpectedly promising quotes from a longtime Iverson fan named Danny Ainge, confirming that the Celtics had recently held "internal discussions" about signing the four-time scoring champ at a time when so many of us believed no team in the league was prepared to have those kinds of discussions.

Yet it was only a few hours later that Iverson, through his longtime confidant and our former ESPN colleague Stephen A. Smith, announced to the world that he intends to retire now, at age 34.

So why would he quit so abruptly?

Forget, for a moment, that pretty much no one who follows this sport thinks he's serious about staying away for long. Let's try to ignore the fact that Iverson's retirement statement, as one of my editors cracked, reads more like a job application than a farewell, with claims that there's "a whole lot left in my tank" and Iverson's strong belief that he "can still compete at the highest level."