Paul Jones

Paul Jones is the voice of the Raptors on the FAN 590 and writes regularly for Sportsnet.ca.

"I feel like I am home,'' Allen Iverson said at shootaround on Monday afternoon.

A.I. is back in a Philly uniform and it will be interesting to see how it effects the Sixers style of play.

Okay folks a bunch of odds and ends before we get to the disgraced Tim Donaghy and his interview on 60 Minutes last night. That's tomorrow because I am so fired up about the whole officiating thing, I know that I would exceed the word limit that the webposse at the Sportsnet.ca webdesk put on me. Do your homework folks and look at the interview so you'll know what I'm talking about when I get after it tomorrow.

But first, Allen Iverson makes his debut tonight in Philadelphia. I never said it publicly but go and ask the traveling media with the Raptors last year as they laughed at me, maybe that's why I didn't go public, but I just knew AI would go back to his roots and land on his feet in Philadelphia. What will be interesting to see is how the team chemistry is reformed with Iverson in the mix. I have asked this question before, but what happens to the Eddie Jordan's Princeton offense predicated on movement of the ball and players, with Iverson handling, and at times, dominating the ball.

Joakim Noah had a good laugh in the locker room on Saturday night before he was run from the game against the Raptors. It was just his frustration as, according to people around the team in Chicago, he is a true competitor and he takes losing very seriously. Noah was asked if he got any calls from guys around the league thanking him for standing up to LeBron James on Friday night. "Nah, I don't have too many friends around the league," he laughed.

The laugh was even louder when Bulls assistant coach, Pete Myers, came into the locker room and yelled out "roll tide" as Noah, a Florida grad was standing alone peering into his locker. The reference of course was to the Gator football team being beaten by the Crimson Tide in the SEC title game.

Noah shot back, "you didn't even go to 'Bama."

Myers, who attended UALR, University of Arkansas (Little Rock), said, "Hey I grew up in Alabama and Bear Bryant's book is like the Bible in my house."

Following Noah's one-handed wave at Myers when he left the room, some reporter said to Noah, "at least you saved your dancing (referring to Noah's dance after the Gators won the NCAA basketball title) until after the game."

A sign of the times: Former Raptor assistant coach Brian James is scouting for not one or two, but five NBA teams. James reflected fondly on his time in Toronto with Lenny Wilkens and Butch Carter. He also talked about what could have been had the Raptors been able to keep the Vince Carter - Tracy McGrady tandem together with the likes of Alvin Williams.

"People don't believe how good a team we had in Toronto," James said. "We could have had won for five or six or seven years had everyone just stayed together."

So what made Butch Carter such a good coach? According to James the same stuff we have heard all along. Carter was extremely well-prepared, he held his players accountable forcing young players to improve as professionals and treating veterans with the respect they deserve within the limits of team and coach's expectations. But most of all, Butch's players believed in the last five minutes of the game, his players believed in him and that he was going to draw up a play to give them a great chance to win the game.