Allen Iverson has been playing "I love them, I love them not" with the Grizzlies for more than a month. Soon, he'll give the Grizzlies his final answer on whether he'll accept their one-year offer.
The Grizzlies originally had a $5 million offer on the table at the start of the free agent period. When he waffled and wanted to look elsewhere, the Grizzlies dropped the offer for the 34-year old Iverson, a 14-year veteran, to at least $3.5 million or about $4.4 million should they renounce their rights to Spanish guard Juan Carlos Navarro. The Grizzlies may add incentives to the deal. Iverson wrote on his Twitter account that a decision is imminent: "Spoke with a couple teams this week, and I think we are getting real close to a deal. I hope so!"
Grizzlies general manager Chris Wallace put the odds of the veteran scorer playing in Memphis at "50-50."
"We'll see," Wallace said. "It's a holding pattern. He's in new territory. He's never been a free agent. He's never been a free agent this late in the offseason. I'm sure he's trying to turn over as many scenarios as he can until he has to commit."
It's thought that Iverson will end up playing for one of his former coaches, Larry Brown, in Charlotte, because he'll be a starter and he can earn the mid-level exception of $5.8 million. The Grizzlies want Iverson in a reserve role behind second-year guard O.J. Mayo, providing a scoring spark off the bench.
