A lot to answer for in Denver

Thanks for coming, A.I.

Everyone had the same question two seasons ago when the Denver Nuggets got Allen Iverson:

Huh?

Aside from getting a superstar who'd been marked down drastically, there was the question of what Iverson could do for the Nuggets that they weren't already doing.

It's official: nothing.

The team that had won 44 games with Carmelo Anthony the season before won 45 and 50 in two seasons with A.I. and 'Melo and was knocked out in the first round of the playoffs in all three.

Officially, Iverson became a former Nugget on Monday, traded to Detroit for Chauncey Billups, Antonio McDyess and Cheikh Samb.

Now the question is what Billups, the prize in this package, can do for the Nuggets that they weren't already doing.

In other words:

Huh?

Despite Iverson's stellar play and the former outlaw icon's leadership -- really -- his greatest impact was on Denver's payroll, obliging theretofore-thrifty owner Stan Kroenke to pay $13.5 million in luxury tax last spring.

The Nuggets have been deconstructing since, looking as if they might give you a player if you asked first.

Actually, the Nuggets held out until the Clippers gave them the right to switch second-round draft picks for Marcus Camby.

With Iverson's contract running out and no extension offer coming, his departure next summer was a certainty. Coincidentally or not, the players just voted Anthony and Kenyon Martin co-captains, demoting Iverson, who had been a tri-captain.

Letting Iverson walk would, at least, have slashed the Nuggets' payroll so they could start over.

Instead, for whatever reason -- because Detroit President Joe Dumars called? -- the Nuggets changed direction again.

At 32, Billups can still play -- in the half-court -- but he comes with a contract through 2012, worth $50 million.

(Samb is a 7-foot project who has played 31 minutes in his NBA career. McDyess was in the deal to make the money match and may retire.)

Billups is one of the league's most respected figures and he's from Denver, so bringing him home may be good PR for a team that, as Martin recently noted, leads the NBA in one thing: tattoos.

Unfortunately or not, depending on whether Coach George Karl cares if he stays, they won't be able to do their favorite trick, making opponents run up and down in the mile-high air.