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Felony charges dropped against IversonJacqueline Soteropoulos of the Philadelphis Inquirer reports that A judge this afternoon threw out all criminal charges except two misdemeanor counts against 76ers superstar Allen Iverson. Iverson was arrested earlier this month for allegedly barging into his cousin’s and threatening people while looking for his wife. Several charges of varying severity were levied against Iverson. The only charges left standing by Municipal Court Judge James DeLeon were two counts of terroristic threats. “It sounds like you had a relative looking for a relative at the house of a relative...” DeLeon said. The ruling came after a chaotic six-hour preliminary hearing that featured testimony from Iverson's two accusers and his cousin, Shaun Bowman. One of the men who accused Allen Iverson of threatening him with a gun changed his story during testimony today. Under questioning by Iverson attorney Richard Sprague, Hakim Carey said he did not see Iverson brandish a gun when Iverson and his uncle showed up at the apartment in the early morning hours of July 3. Carey said that his friend, Charles Jones, told him to back up Jones' story that Iverson had a gun. Jones was on the stand later in the day and denied that he had told Carey what to say to police. Attorneys for Iverson and his uncle had maintained their clients were not guilty. Read the Full Story Discuss Send Feedback Buy Tickets NBA forward Coleman arrestedHawke Fracassa of the Detroit News reports that Sixers forward Derrick Coleman was arrested Saturday after he was clocked at 100 mph in a 70 mph zone. Farmington Hills Police Chief William Dwyer said Sunday that Coleman, 35, was charged with operating a vehicle under the influence of liquor because he refused three requests to take breath tests. He was taken into custody about 3:30 a.m. by officers who "detected the odor of intoxicants" on his breath, Dwyer said. Coleman told police he "had some champagne," Dwyer said. Police said Coleman continued to drive west at more than 100 mph three miles after officers first tried to pull him over. Coleman paid a $150 bond and was released after blood tests were taken by court order at Botsford Hospital. His car, a 2003 Land Rover, was impounded. Read the Full Story Discuss Send Feedback Buy Tickets Taxing squad of threePeter May of the Boston Globe tells us that “as of now, three names stand out as the early front-line casualties of the NBA's New Economy”. When all is said and done, Rodney Rogers, Keon Clark and Matt Harpring will have probably been let go by teams that held their rights simply because of the luxury tax. May concedes that all three will find work in the NBA this year and all three will be paid more than the minimum. But all three represent different ways in which the apparently sure-to-come luxury tax has forced owners and management to retool, rethink, and reconfigure on the fly. The Celtics offered Rogers a pay cut. Not because they were disappointed in his play, but simply because they decided they could only afford to pay him $1 million. May explains, “The Celtics knew two things: Rogers could not accept their offer and he would not accept their offer. Without a luxury tax, he would have quickly re-signed and Vin Baker would still be in Seattle. But the Baker trade enabled the Celtics to jettison $15 million in salaries for this season while taking on $14 million. That's Paul Gaston's kind of math.” So Rogers, arguably the fourth-best player on the team, is now shopping and, if he hasn't signed anywhere by September, maybe that $1 million won't look so bad. Clark and Harpring fall into a slightly different category of tax casualty. Both players were restricted free agents when their team’s tendered the required qualifying offer. As a restricted free agent, the team reserves the right to match other team’s offers and keep the player. This is a gread advantage to the current team in keeping a talented free agent from signing elsewhere. Both Clark and Harpring are talented. Clark played 81 games for the Raptors and was fifth on the team in scoring, second in rebounding, and first in blocked shots. In any other market, he would have been resigned already. May writes, “Toronto general manager Glen Grunwald said his team wanted to make a fair offer to Clark, but ''fair'' in Grunwald's book has a different meaning than ''fair'' in Clark's book. Had Grunwald not signed Michael Stewart and Hakeem Olajuwon to silly, pre-luxury tax contracts, there'd be money to keep Clark. But now Clark is available to the highest bidder and, theoretically, should get something greater than $2.5 million. The Raptors may have something left over to sign a lesser player, maybe someone like ... Harpring.” On Harpring, May writes that he "merely started 81 games for the 76ers and was one of the few to make it through the season without some debilitating injury. ''But, with the luxury tax,'' Sixers GM Billy King said, ''it's a different ballgame out there. No one talks about the salary cap anymore. It's all luxury tax.'' According to May, King said Friday that he's taken countless calls from agents begging him to sign their player to the veteran minimum. That's one reason he pulled the plug on the Harpring tender. The other was that if it had been signed, King could not have traded Harpring for a year and Harpring would have been an unrestricted free agent this time next year. The Sixers already have spent around half of their $4.5 million exception on Dallas free agent Greg Buckner. The other half, or some portion of it, may be offered to Rogers. (King said there was nothing going on with Rogers.) Given the way the summer has gone, Rogers should think long and hard about any offer, even if it's a big dropoff from the $2.6 million he made last year. Given the way things are going, with teams trimming payrolls and rosters, the next offer might be the best one because it also might be the only one. Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors, Philadelphia 76ers Read the Full Story Discuss Send Feedback Buy Tickets Sixers Jul 2002 Archive
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