Is that your final Answer?

When Allen Iverson signed a one-year, $3.5 million contract with the Memphis Grizzlies just before the season began, no one expected him to turn back the clock and play like the All-Star he once was, or to lead the team out of its perpetual troubles. But surely most people thought the ill-formed marriage would last longer than this: after just three games, the former Hoya guard skipped the Grizzlies’ game last Saturday against the Clippers to fly back to his home in Atlanta for “personal reasons.” Iverson had to handle a family matter, but now he is taking an indefinite leave of absence. He isn’t injured, sick, or unfit to play—he just doesn’t want to come off the bench.

Iverson, a 6-foot point guard and former scoring champion, isn’t used to starting the game with his warm-ups on. He started both years he played at Georgetown, and began starting for the Philadelphia 76ers immediately after being selected with the number one overall pick in the 1996 draft. He’s been a starter ever since.

But after a 13-year career of hurtling himself into much larger men on his breakneck yet silky-smooth drives to the basket, his body has slowed down a bit. His signature move—the crossover dribble—depends on his lightning quickness and agility, which have seriously declined since his glory days. His jump shot, always suspect, has become an embarrassment, as he made less than 30 percent of his threes last season.

Without his quickness and springy athleticism, Iverson has become a shadow of the player he once was, and he suddenly finds his starting position usurped by the still-unproven Mike Conley (a member of the Ohio State team that bounced Georgetown from the 2007 Final Four). In his heyday though, Iverson tore the league apart. Covered in tattoos and ostentatious bling, The Answer and his reputation for dribble-heavy ball-hogging represented everything Commissioner David Stern and the NBA didn’t want as its public image, but his fierce determination and inexorable effort, coupled with a freakish quickness and a soft touch won him the respect and admiration of fans, coaches and players.

That’s why it’s bizarre to see Iverson, an NBA demigod, relegated to limited minutes behind a youngster in the basketball purgatory of Memphis. But it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Iverson is leaving the league just how he entered it—brash, cocky, and unabashedly controversial. Naysayers will point to his petulant departure as yet another selfish move in a career full of arrogance, but in my mind, it’s better that Iverson goes out this way: indignant, conceited, and angry—refusing to play on anyone’s terms but his own.

The Answer is a star, a go-to guy, a fearless, miniature warrior in a league full of giants. To see him live out the end of his career as a backup to a scrub just feels wrong. Iverson should either be at the center of the league or not in it at all. It sounds strange, but I hope he never comes back. Instead of seeing a wounded and docile Iverson trot off the bench night after night for an irrelevant Memphis team, I’d rather see him storm out of the league in a fury and never look back. It’s the only fitting end for a man who followed no one’s rules but his own.

Give your answer to Sean at squigley@georgetownvoice.com.