Wrong answer

After the Grizzlies lost to the Kings earlier this week, Allen Iverson voiced his displeasure with coming off the bench and playing just 18 minutes in the game.

Iverson told reporters, among other things, to "go look at my resume, it will show you that I’m not a sixth man.”

Since our aim at The Sports Rippers is to make people happy, I am going to do just that.

First, let's look at Iverson's stats. No one could argue that at his best he was an all-time great scorer. He's averaged 27 ppg for his career, good for 5th in NBA history.

Unfortunately, Iverson isn't exactly what I'd call an efficient scorer. He's never shot better than 46% in any season and has dipped below 40% twice. His career shooting percentage is a putrid 42.5. Four times Iverson led the NBA in field goal attempts.

The Answer led the league in turnovers twice, has shot just 31% on three-pointers for his career and was never a particularly good defender.

The most important fact to know about Iverson is that the 76ers got better after they traded Iverson for Andre Miller, and Denver improved after trading Iverson for Chauncey Billups.

Is that the resume you meant, Allen?

It seems Iverson has never been able to grasp that everything isn't about him. The Grizzlies won 24 games last year. They have a young and promising backcourt of O.J. Mayo and Mike Conley. Memphis is doing the smart thing, getting those guys experience and trying to gauge if they're the kind of players to build around.

It's possible - though certainly not a sure thing - that Memphis could win two or three more games over the course of the season with Iverson starting instead of Conley or Mayo. But that's not important. The Grizz don't want to be slightly less bad this year, they want to be good in the future.

If the Grizzlies are better in the future, you can bet it's a future that won't include Iverson.