The most selfish player to ever play in the NBA, Allen Iverson, is out for the remainder of the season for the Detroit Pistons with a so-called ‘hurt back.’

Earlier this week, Iverson whined about coming off the bench and that he’d rather retire than become a team player. Throughout Iverson’s career it has always been about him. He’s shown up late for practices, whether it was for the Philadelphia 76ers or the United States Basketball team, or sometimes didn’t even show up at all. He’s never had any respect for his coaches. Larry Brown and Maurice Cheeks were the most famous of his victims. And his selfishness on the court credited him with not being able to make any of his teammates better during his entire basketball career.

The NBA will be a better place if Allen Iverson retires after this year.

The Detroit Pistons knew what they were getting this year when they traded Chauncey Billups to the Denver Nuggets. They didn’t acquire Allen Iverson. They acquired his expiring contract. Allen Iverson’s expiring contract is worth more than Allen Iverson. When Iverson becomes a free agent this summer, he will quickly find out his services are not wanted anymore in the NBA. There is not one contending team or playoff team that will sign him.

He is a cancer. He is a plague.

The Philadelphia 76ers were not successful because of Allen Iverson, they were successful because of Larry Brown. Larry Brown was able to surround Iverson with a team of unselfish players. Players that didn’t care if Iverson dribbled the ball for 23 seconds before shooting. Players that were capable of rebounding and defending and helping Iverson when he wasn’t able to defend. And players who knew what their role was and played it to perfection.

In the meat of Allen Iverson’s career, he averaged almost 25 shots per game. Way too many for a guard whose FG% was around 41%. That is absolutely putrid and embarrassing. Iverson will go down in the history books as one of the worst-shooting guards in NBA history. Eric Snow has the same career FG% as Allen Iverson. And 76er’s fans know how horrible of a shooter Eric Snow was.

I understand there is a huge Iverson following and they have supported him on and off the court. They love him. They cherish him. But these are the people that don’t understand how the game of basketball is supposed to be played. It’s played as a team and Iverson is not a team player. He never was and he never will want to be.

When he finally retires, hopefully after this year, the NBA will be a better place.

Phillies 2B Chase Utley thinks he will be ready for Opening Day following off-season hip surgery. Utley underwent the surgery on November 24th and was initially thought to be out 2-3 months of the season.

“In two to three weeks”"that would be nice” Utley said. “If everything goes as planned, that’s what we want to do. And right now, we’re on schedule.”

Utley, who hit .292 with a career-high 33 bombs in 2008, first started feeling pain in his hip in May or June. He played through the injury to help lead the Phillies to their first World Series title since 1980.

“It’s about listening to my body. Right now, we are listening and it’s responding well” Utley said. “If that continues to happen, then I don’t see why I won’t be ready for opening day.”

As of now, he thinks he can start swinging a bat in a few weeks, provided there are no hiccups.

“If there are some setbacks”"which are a possibility”"I’m not going to be dumb about it and move through it” Utley added. “I’ll listen to my body and when it’s ready, it’s ready. Hopefully that will be Opening Day.”

General Manager Reuben Amaro, Jr. is “cautiously optimistic” about his early return.

“Everything that we’ve done so far, there have been no problems” Utley said.

His skipper thinks if anyone can do it, it’s Utley.

“I know how (Utley) works out” added manager Charlie Manuel. “He’s more determined than anyone in the world, really.”

A California native, Utley has spent a ton of time in Philly this off-season rehabbing and thinks he can be ready for the Braves on April 5th.

The Baltimore Ravens have updated RB Willis McGahee’s status after he was knocked senseless and carried off the field on a stretcher Sunday night in the Ravens’ loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship game. Steelers’ safety Ryan Clark was the one who laid the wood.

“McGahee was released from Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh early this morning and returned immediately to Baltimore” said Kevin Byrne, the Ravens’ senior V.P. of public and community relations. “He is resting at his home today. It is expected that Willis will have a complete recovery from the head and neck injuries he suffered last night.”

It was reported last night that he had a concussion and would end up being fine. That seems to be the case.

With the emergence of LaRon McClain and Ray Rice, it’s unlikely that McGahee will be back with the Ravens next season.

Eh oh. If the goal of an NFL team is to be playing well at the end of the season then I’m not sure the Titans got that memo. Not only did they lose to the Houston Texans on Sunday, they have now found out that they will be without Albert Haynesworth (MCL) and Kyle Vanden Bosch (groin) until the playoffs.

“I look at this as good news, we’re expected to have them both back for the playoffs,” Jeff Fisher said.

Uh huh. This is a serious blow for the Titans in their quest for home-field advantage (they’ve already clinched the division and a first-round bye).

Albert Haynesworth is arguably the best defensive player in football. In 2007, he missed three games due to injury. They lost all three games. You get the point.

The Titans have been amazing this year, but they haven’t been blowing people out. They grind it out and make you earn it. Without Haynesworth and Vanden Bosch, you can move the ball and score much easier. The big problem for Tennessee is that they aren’t built to come from behind. Their wide receivers are pretty much garbage and Kerry Collins’ shoulder aren’t the type you want to put a game on.

We’ll see what happens in the playoffs, but the entire NFL is absolutely wide open right now with the Titans and Giants suffering injuries and playing poorly. If I’m Pittsburgh or Indianapolis, I’m a pretty happy camper right now.

In a move that will surprise no one, the Giants have suspended Plaxico Burress for the final four games of the season for conduct detrimental to the team and have placed him on the non-football injury list.

You may or may not have guessed that the non-football injury relates to him going Fifty Cent on himself in a Manhattan night club on Friday night (there’s an “In Tha Club” joke in there somewhere but I have neither the time nor the inclination to find it).

“The decision we made today regarding Plaxico’s roster status was based on the examination of Plaxico by our team physician” General Manager Jerry Reese said in a statement released by the team. “Dr. Rodeo believes Plaxico would be out at least four to six weeks with the gunshot wound. I had two conversations with Plaxico today, and it was obvious that he understood the magnitude of this situation. He knows that we are here to support him and help him get healthy.”

Write it down: Plaxico Burress will never play for the Giants again.

And based on the fact that his recent crime comes with a mandatory 3.5 years in lockup (and Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants him prosecuted “to the fullest extent of the law”), he might never play again in the NFL.

NFL sources tell the Boston Globe that Tom Brady returned to Boston for a checkup on his surgically repaired left knee. The same sources confirmed that Brady has suffered from a postoperative staph infection that has slowed his rehab process.

The good news is that, in all likelihood, the patella tendon graft will be kept and Brady won’t need a second surgery.

That said, Brady is still behind in his rehab process and that will jeopardize his 2009 season. Infections of this nature also increase the risk of scar tissue buildup and long-term stiffness and aches.

San Diego’s Philip Rivers is a rare case. He played on a bum ACL in the AFC Championship game and was fine for Week 1. But, in November 2006, Donovan McNabb tore his ACL and wasn’t really himself until late in the 2007 season.

Neither player had issues with a staph infection, however. And, keep in mind that the left knee is his plant knee. Anyone get a whiff of Peyton Manning earlier this year? He was just coming back after having a bursa sac removed in his plant knee and was awfully tentative.

If Brady is human (and I think he might be although no sources will confirm this), he’s likely to be a little uneasy looking downfield as the likes of Dwight Freeney and Terrell Suggs roll around on the ground by his patella tendon-grafted knee.

For the first time since Jaguars offensive lineman Richard Collier was shot on September 2, details have finally emerged. Collier was shot 14 times, according to Dr. Andy Kerwin. Five of those bullets hit his urinary bladder and two of them hit his lower spine, rendering him paralyzed from the waist down.

These injuries were life threatening and left him with a blood clot in his left leg, which then had to be amputated above the knee.

“It is with my deepest regret that Collier’s career with the NFL is over” said his agent Jeff Jankovich. “Now Richard has a very difficult journey ahead of him but he is up to the challenge. His spirits are positive and he has a lot of support from his family and friends. His family wanted to keep the situation under wraps so that Richard would be the first to know. Richard is a kind and generous man and now he needs our thoughts and prayers.”

“It’s a great tragedy for a young man to have such a bright future, at the top of the food chain, to have not only his career but his health taken away,” said Jaguars head coach Jack Del Rio.

Collier, 26, was a rookie in 2006 and played in eight games since then, starting one in 2007.

Jankovich says that while he initially was devastated by the news that he’ll never play again, his spirits at this point are high.

“He’s talking about owning some businesses, doing some coaching, he wants to do things in the community,” Jankovich said.

The investigation in the shooting is ongoing and the current reward stands at $25,000 for anyone with information that could help lead the police to his shooter. If you think you can help, please call 1-866-845-TIPS (8477).

New England Patriots quarterback and cornerstone Tom Brady will be out for the rest of the NFL season after the team announced he will have knee surgery after being injured Sunday in the first quarter of the Patriots opener against the Kansas City Chiefs.

“After extensive tests this morning, it was revealed that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s left knee, which was injured in the first quarter of yesterday’s game, will require surgery. He will be placed on injured reserve and will miss the remainder of the 2008 season,” the team said in a statement released Monday.

Brady dropped back from the Kansas City 43-yard-line halfway through the first quarter when Chiefs safety Bernard Pollard blitzed. Despite the fact that the blitz was blocked and Brady completed a nearly 30-yard pass to star Randy Moss, Pollard made a last second dive at the quarterback and caught him in the left knee.

Brady was the 2007 NFL Most Valuable Player, and this is a devastating blow not only to his team but the the league in general.

Unless you live under a rock, you know by now (and have known for some time) that one Mr. Tom Brady went down with a knee injury Sunday afternoon against the Chiefs.

So far we had heard absolutely nothing about the severity, but Tom Curran of NBC Sports says that one NY Jets player told him that it’s a torn ACL.

“Everybody I talked to said it’s a torn ACL,” said the Jets player. “Players AND coaches. When we came in here that’s what people were saying, ‘Brady’s got a torn ACL.’ ”

Keep in mind that the Jets are in Miami and I’m not exactly sure how this information would get to their locker room so quickly after the game. Bill Belichick said after the game that he still has no information, and NBC’s “Football Night in America” crew agreed. I would guess that if the Jets player was correct, then Curran could have gotten the information to NBC’s television program. Just a hunch.

Patriots WR Randy Moss said after the game that he thought it was a dirty play.

“I don’t really want to get into it, but me personally, I think it was dirty,” Moss said. “Like I said, I didn’t really see anything. I was running down the field. When I came back in (and watched it), it looked dirty to me. I’ve never been a dirty player. I honestly don’t even know how to play dirty. I just play the game. Any time you see something like that, that looks foul, it looks dirty, it opens your eyes. So, me personally, it looked dirty.”

Cris Collinsworth of NBC’s “Football Night in America” said that he checked with the league office and said that there is no way that it was a dirty play.

Stay tuned. If Brady is down for a significant amount of time, it’s safe to say the Patriots are cooked. Matt Cassel is no 2001 Tom Brady.

UPDATE: Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports reports that sources have told him that it is indeed a torn ACL and that Brady is out for the year. I am confirming that if you used your first-round pick on Brady in your fantasy league that you are screwed.

Led by Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce (The Big Two), the Boston Celtics defeated the Detroit Pistons last night 88-79. Garnett had 26 points and 9 rebounds. Pierce had 22 points, 6 boards and 6 assists. Rajon Rondo was also very active on the defensive side, seemingly beating Detroit to every loose ball and collecting five steals.

Detroit looked very rusty coming off a week of rest. They missed their first five shots of the game and fell quickly into an 8-0 hole. Overall they shot 42% from the field and never really found their offense (couldn’t hit wide-open shots). Billups, Sheed, and Hamilton all had their switch turned off. Expect these three players to step up their game for Game Two.

Pierce looked like a new man out there with no Lebron on the court to defend. With all the pressure off from guarding Lebron, Pierce looked very sharp attacking the hoop and continued where he left off from Game Seven.

Also, there is no "Big Three" anymore. As noted above, it’s "Big Two." Ray Allen is not a big-time player anymore. He had a sweet wide open air ball last night. It looked like the shot came from an MTV Rock and Jock game thrown up by Malcolm in the Middle.

According to a source close to the situation, Jimmy Rollins’ injury is more than just a sprained ankle. Jimmy Rollins has a broken bone in his ankle. On April 20th, Jimmy was placed on the 15-day DL for a sprained ankle, but he could stay on the DL longer than first anticipated.

The 2007 National League MVP has only played in 12 of the 21 games this year, but the Phillies have managed well without him. However, Rollins is a vital piece to this team if they have any chance of winning back-to-back National League East titles.

In the fourth inning of the Mets 5-4 extra-inning loss to the Florida Marlins (hey Marlin fans, there are plenty of tickets available), Pedro Martinez felt a pop in his right hamstring and it doesn’t look good.

The team is calling it a strained hamstring, but Martinez was clearly dejected as he left the stadium. He will most likely head to the Mark Prior list (the DL) and at his age, this could take a minute.

This is great news for the Philadelphia Phillies, whose pitching staff is more like a warm bucket of hamster vomit than a Major League group of pitchers. Maybe the defending NL East champs can hang in there and prevent the Mets from running away with the division.