NBA miami Heat

A four-time scoring champ leading Mike D'Antoni's up-tempo offense? It looked like a match made in heaven on paper, but the Knicks have apparently decided the intangibles surrounding Allen Iverson -- including ugly exits with two teams in the span of seven months -- outweighed the potential gains.

According to Howard Beck of the New York Times, the Knicks went back and forth on the issue, with a team source suggesting Thursday afternoon there was a 90 percent chance the team would offer a contract. Ultimately, however, the team's brain trust decided that "Iverson posed too great a risk" -- a damning indictment if there ever was one, considering the 2-7 Knicks are currently on pace for a 15-win season.

MILWAUKEE -- As the New Jersey Nets are ringing up losses, Scott Hastings has a vested interest.

Hastings, you see, was on the expansion 1988-89 Miami Heat that set the record for most losses to start an NBA season at 17. So Hastings is hoping the Nets will knock the Heat out of the record book, right?

Try again.

"Absolutely not,'' Hastings said. "We were a bad team. We deserved our record, and I'm disappointed any time anybody gets close. Go Nets.''

Some people never learn. D.J. Mbenga may be one of them.

Now, D.J. is a good guy and he makes a decent living as the backup center for world champion Los Angeles Lakers, but there's a reason he's a backup center. Besides a talent deficiency, Mbenga is not quick and therefore slow to rotate on help defense and recover on pick-and-rolls.

This often puts him in an awkward position, that position being Mbenga on a poster on his keister.

Such was the case again Friday when Nuggets rookie Ty Lawson went medieval on Mbenga.

(The pair of pliers and the blowtorch after the jump.)

DENVER -- LeBron James is the first choice. But Chris Bosh certainly would be a solid backup for the Miami Heat next summer in free agency.

And he's willing to consider it.

The Heat, which figures to have more than $15 million of salary-cap room, is looking for a superstar to pair with Dwyane Wade. And Wade, who talked last week about possibly luring James to South Florida while also mentioning Bosh, is positioning himself as a recruiter.

"Anything is possible, I guess,'' Bosh, the Toronto star who can become a free agent next summer, told FanHouse in an interview before Tuesday's game at Denver about the possibility of going to Miami. "I guess that seems to be an attractive place, you know, playing with Dwyane and playing in Miami and everything. I guess if they had the right chemistry, the right guys, that they could persuade guys to get there. But we'll see.''

The Nets have had a string of injuries take away their chance to be at all relevant the first part of this season, and in fact, they were winless through nine games heading into Miami to face Dwyane Wade and the Heat on Saturday. They appeared to have a chance to get their first win of the season, though, thanks to a sluggish effort from a Miami team that was missing Jermaine O'Neal from the start, and Mario Chalmers after five minutes due to injury.

New Jersey led by three with 30 seconds remaining, before Quentin Richardson accidentally banked in a three-pointer to tie the game at 78. The Nets got the lead back, thanks to a tip-in from Brook Lopez with just under four seconds remaining.

But unfortunately for the Nets, Dwyane Wade plays for the Heat. And even though he hadn't made a shot the entire second half, he drained a three with 0.1 left on the game clock to make sure that New Jersey stayed winless.

Video after the jump(er).

ORLANDO -- LeBron James can stop wearing his No. 23 if he wants -- in deference to Michael Jordan -- but asking the rest of the league to follow his lead is only showing his immaturity.

Magic coach Stan Van Gundy was asked Friday morning about James' request, and he didn't hesitate to say he thinks the idea is misplaced.

"It's a nice gesture, but he (Jordan) is not Jackie Robinson. Baseball did it because it had historical significance,'' Van Gundy said. "There actually were guys before Michael who could play the game. Then you should retire numbers that (Bill) Russell, Wilt (Chamberlain), and certainly Oscar (Robertson) wore. I understand LeBron didn't grow up watching those guys, but still. ''

The Heat drew mostly guffaws when it retired the jersey of Michael Jordan, who never played one second for the franchise. Heat prez Pat Riley suggested it was a move to honor the game's greatest player, but most saw it as a silly bit of marketing showmanship.

MJ attended Thursday's Heat-Cavaliers game with Riley -- the TNT broadcast crew noted that Scottie Pippen also sat courtside, and suggested it might have been some subliminal "pair with Dwyane Wade!" messaging to LeBron James. MJ's presence made the game a bit more weird, and led to a rare political statement from LeBron: he thinks players should stop wearing No. 23 out of deference to His Airness, and he plans to lead the charge by switching to No. 6 next season.

Cleveland and Miami squared off Thursday night, and while the story leading up to the game was the unfathomably awesome possibility of Dwyane Wade and LeBron James playing on the same team, the story (at least microcosmically) coming out of the game is the following dunk that Wade threw down on Anderson "Flopsy" Varejao.

It is, as the Hoop Docs put it, "posterization."

Hawks buzzard Josh Smith has famously wasted quite a few Atlanta possessions over the years by taking ill-advised three-pointers. That phraseology is actually redundant when it comes to Smith: it would be considered ill to ever advise Smith to take a three.

Thankfully, someone showed Josh the light, and he hasn't attempted a trey all season. He convinces when he tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he hasn't even felt tempted to fire up a bomb. He found Basketball Jesus! Like a good son of the word, he should spread his experience. Which players would most benefit from a Brother Smith knock at the door?