This is a column on Allen Iverson. It will contain several references to some form of "polarization" or "controversial," nod to the sheer fantasy of Iverson's best games and invoke the pound-for-pound metric. It will also generate more comments than anything else posted here all month, most of them made by readers who made up their minds beforehand. The same is probably true for its author, who didn't even bother to make notes for this one.

Allen Iverson has cut ties with the Memphis Grizzles. As with everything else in Iverson's career, some of us will put it all on the veteran guard, others, the second party involved. As usual, it is the kind of situation that seemed doomed from the outset. Should the Grizzlies have realized that Iverson wouldn't come off the bench, and really didn't need him making a claim on the starting slots of their young guards? Or is this the time that AI should have either swallowed his pride and, as a Hall of Famer on a subpar team, either become a quasi-assistant or pay his dues in the rotation to prove his humility?

Of course, Allen Iverson didn't out and out retire. Then we would at least be able to pronounce his career, and thus this final chapter, finished. But for all we know, this might turn out to be a false start to this pivotal season (as if anything ever really changes for, or around, AI). He could very easily resurface in a matter of months, or weeks, on a playoff team that can approach him with more leverage, or is in more desperate straits. He might end up a box office bonanza for an otherwise moribund Knicks team, stolen by the Nets and Jay-Z to prove a point, or give, say, Boston or Houston a bolt of offense they can make use of on its own terms—within their framework.

Or maybe that last option is just the same old dilemma. Allen Iverson won't ever change, and teams won't ever figure out how to make him the focal point. Maybe he's defying basketball by thinking his game has real superstar functionality; maybe basketball is foolish for, aside from one year of Larry Brown, having never made the most of Iverson's potential to anchor some kind of team formation. Half-empty, half-full—that Iverson is long gone, and yet what's left is hardly an ineffective slouch.

I used to think Kobe Bryant was the player who most split fans into love/hate camps. And it's true, given his current prominence, and over-exposure, Bryant is subject to the most mass-ambivalence. But with Iverson, it still runs deeper. At this point, few can deny that Bryant is one of, if not the, premier players of his generation, a complete player and tireless student of the game whose basketball IQ trumps your GRE scores. Facial tics, other mannerisms, and other superficialities ... these are still grounds for quibbling. For the most part, though, Bryant's become a beaming constant, if one that can work the nerves of some fans. Even in his darkest days, the "great but flawed" tag attached to Kobe had nothing on the conflicting views of Iverson.

Allen Iverson was, and still is, heaven or the great below. He shakes basketball to its very foundations or, according to some, is foolish enough to think he can. He changed the game, though not necessarily for the better. We have been forced to take him at face value, and in the process awaken all sorts of even more inspirational, or degrading, feelings about race, culture, and the structure of American society. "Ambivalence" doesn't even fit. That was Kobe; Iverson is a player who exists in two different worlds.

Someday, Iverson will hang it all up, the war will end, and we'll all breathe a sign of relief. There will be a column for that. It could denounce his career, or all the right rhetorical notes to let you know that, really, you never really understood Allen Iverson. Regardless, the tone will be triumphal. Maybe he will have a ring by then; that's either vindication or proof of what he should've been all along. You can see his fingerprints all over the league, albeit it in more subtle ways; that plays into the hands of both sides, but either way, it's proof that Iverson contributed something to the development of today's NBA.

When Allen Iverson does really call it quits, and you get that column, it will also mark the beginning of the healing process. Iverson zealots will have no battle left to fight. They know what they know and can harbor it for generations. Those in search of a villain can move on to someone more timely. That's the closure. The lines will remain drawn, but postures will soften. We'll come to agree that Iverson was a rare gift who just didn't, or wouldn't get it.

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Whether he was given the opportunity, or should have made it for himself, will have become like arguing over the bench of the 2002-03 Nuggets: pure trivia. We'll watch those MVP year games with Philly, all shake our heads in disbelief, and finally be free to say: Whatever Allen Iverson was, he was that like no one before or since. Given the awe his best play generates, especially when win/loss records and coaching beefs fall away, that's about the highest honor we can all agree to pay the man.

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