Allen Iverson has finally been traded to the Denver Nuggets. He will be heading to the Pepsi Center in exchange for Andre Miller, Joe Smith and two first-round draft picks in 2007.

This saga has drawn out for some time now, but hasn't generated enough interest around the NBA to really create a high-stakes bidding frenzy. In the wake of the brawl in New York, though, the stakes were changed when the Nuggets lost the league's leading scorer in Carmelo Anthony for 15 games.

This changed their hand. With their next-best scoring option J.R. Smith, he of the numerous bad shots per night, out for 10 games, the Nuggets had to secure Iverson in order to stop the watershed of a potentially disastrous next month without their stars in the Mile High City.

Of course, from a Philadelphia standpoint, this isn't as bad a trade as some, including myself, had feared. Miller has been a solid point guard for a long time, and this will hopefully encourage Andre Iguodala to become less timid as a scorer now that Iverson isn't demanding that he be given room to bounce around on drives and make insane lay-ups over seven-foot giants. Joe Smith has never been a risk-free proposition; as the Timberwolves well know, but he is essentially a dead weight with a contract in this deal. Also, the two picks give the 76ers three first-round selections in next year's draft, which is anticipated to be the deepest since 2003.

This also includes the team's own pick, which is likely to come early if they finish as near cellar-dwellers, thus giving them hope at landing Greg Oden.

Denver have gone from play-off contenders to legitimate Finals contenders with this move. Iverson is obviously a scoring phenomenon, and has shown that he can play as point guard, having averaged 7.3 assists per game this season. He provides an elite one-two combo with Carmelo, which allows J.R. Smith to develop in the third option role instead of having to carry too much of a burden. This gives the Nuggets a more flexible team as he can play shooting guard with Earl Boykins at point (in the world's smallest line-up) to create a lightning fast and exciting new possibility in the new Small Ball world.

The X-factor he brings, too, is that Iverson has just been through two weeks of being an inactive piece of trade meat who, it seems, no one really wants. That gives him something major to prove; consider how Gilbert Arenas has tried to show Team USA wrong for leaving him out of the recent campaigns, and then imagine AI - he of the career 28 points per night average - wanting to demonstrate to the entire league that they just missed acquiring one of the most unique and unstoppable scoring threats in basketball history.

The biggest loser in this deal is Kevin Garnett, who continues to stew in a cesspool of Minnesotan mediocrity with an ever-fading glimmer of hope that he will get near an NBA championship. This is a very smart trade for Denver and hopefully can help them recover from the damage that Mardy Collins and Isaiah Thomas helped to inflict with their dirty tactics of fuelling a brawl in a supposedly professional sporting environment. And the Sixers may have sold the house for chump change, but at least they did it with a enough credible returns that you don't draw blood while scratching your head.