Menopauss wrote:Paul is the greatest three-point era point guard next to Magic. It's not even questionable.
Sure as hell is, Steve Nash would like a word with you.
This, though...
Menopauss wrote:The Answer. The answer you can be named the league MVP and be considered one of the best players of the era simply by being popular and shooting a lot of shots. The god of ineffectiveness and destroying his teams offense. He gets a lot of undeserving recognition on offense.
That 2001 Sixers team was very good on defense, not because of him. Mutoumbo, Ratliff, Lynch. He was their best offensive player, hence the 25.5 FGA per game. So Mutoumbo was money in the Playoffs, especially on defense. Then there's the Finals, where he continued playing well, and where Iverson showed just how ineffective can he be. He took almost 60 shots more than Kobe in the series, and about 50 more than Shaq. Sure, No one except Dikembe helpe on offense, but how could they when the USG% between you and your big man is 56. You're supposed to be an All-time great scorer, which the other team had two of, to pull that off.
You are absolutely clueless, man. Honest question: do you consider any stats other than TS% when spouting this kind of nonsense?
Firstly, Iverson was MVP over Shaq in large part due to the cinderella factor. The Sixers were the out-of-nowhere success story, tying for the best record in the league with the behemoth Shaq-Kobe Lakers team. If you wish to belittle that with comparing conference strength, compare the roster strength as well.
Secondly, there is absolutely no evidence of Iverson "killing" his team's offense. Quite the opposite, actually. If you're thinking the sky-high USG%, answer one simple question for me: who else on that roster should have been taking those shots?
To get details of Iverson's killing the '01 Sixers with high USG, consider this:
regular season
Iverson 20 or less FGA: 9-5 (.643)
Iverson 21-30 FGA: 33-10 (.767)
Iverson 31+ FGA: 8-6 (.571)
The sweet spot (and most frequent one) is evident. Interestingly, the number of games with 20 or less FGA and 31+ FGA is identical and the record shows only a 1-game difference. AI shooting 31+ times isn't optimal, but neither is him taking fewer than 20. The volume of each FGA zone and the winning percentage shows that he usually did what was right for the team. What about the postseason, then?
playoffs
Iverson 20 or less FGA: 0-1 (.000)
Iverson 21-30 FGA: 5-6 (.455)
Iverson 31+ FGA: 7-3 (.700)
As defenses get tighter in the playoffs, Philly has to rely on AI even heavier to win games. With the other guys being very easy to eliminate from contributing, it is in the team's best interest that Iverson take as many shots as possible. With only one game seeing him take 20 or less shots, perhaps the better cutoff would be 25 FGA, but a criterion of 25 or less FGA still gives us only three games and... yeah, you guessed it - Philly lost all three.
If you're thinking TS%, then please adjust it for the fact that this is BEFORE handchecking became illegal (see the spike in TS% starting from 04-05?) and the fact that offensively, his support was absolutely pathetic - no shooters and no finishers. Opposing defenses were able to double and triple team Iverson all they wanted without worrying about role players punishing them.
Prime Iverson was one of the most unstoppable one-on-one forces ever. Teams quickly recognized it and began throwing many men at him. The sensible thing to do, then, is kick out to three-point shooters instead of chucking up lower percentage shots, right? Well... it may be easier said than done with a terrible shooting roster. Let's take a look at Philly's league rank in 3-pointers attempted from 98-99 (beginning of AI's prime) until he left in 06-07:
1999 - 29th (last)
2000 - 23rd
2001 - 28th
2002 - 29th (last)
2003 - 28th
2004 - 24th
2005 - 10th
2006 - 24th
2007 - 30th
In '05 the Sixers were coached by Jim O'Brien who emphasized pushing the tempo and shooting 3s. In '06, they were coached by Mo Cheeks who didn't want a young Kyle Korver to shoot threes, wanting him to develop a mid-range game instead.
Clearly, outside of 2005, those numbers are brutal. Keep in mind that this is already with Iverson himself shooting about 4 threes per game. He had no spacing on the team, nobody who could shoot AT ALL. Imagine Wade or Paul or any player who operates on pick and rolls without any shooting around them. Now ask them to be efficient while the defense can easily double or triple them on pretty much every play. Add to that perhaps the worst management any superstar player has had during his prime (the most offensive help AI ever got was a broken down Derrick Coleman and a one-legged, washed up Chris Webber). Today's stars would be crying their way out of there in no time.
If you need further validation of Iverson being capable of more efficient scoring (as well as compromising a few shots and some USG), look no further than his 07-08 season in Denver with quite a bit of offensive firepower. 26.4 PPG on 26.7% USG and 56.7% TS - and this is an Iverson in his 30s, already on the decline. Imagine the kind of damage he could have done with good offensive support in his prime... and if it was in the no-handchecking era as well, he might have averaged around 15 FTA to go along with it.
It might be a totally new concept for the TS% generation, but when a player has a talented offensive team with many scoring threats, he gets easier shots and less double teams, because the defense cannot afford to put as much pressure on him. When the team has no offensive talent, it's a lot harder for that player to be efficient, because the reverse is true.
Despite his own inefficiency, Iverson was greatly boosting his team's offense by putting an enormous amount of pressure on the opposing defense, as the '01 Sixers were the 13th best offensive team in the league. That's quite remarkable for a team with 1 (read: one) scoring threat. For comparison's sake, the universally praised and efficient Wade with a subpar offensive support only led the '09 and '10 Heat to the 20th and 19th best offense, respectively.
Okay, but how do we know it was indeed Iverson who was boosting the team's offense? Well, the following year AI misses over 20 games and Philly's offense tanks to 23rd in the league. In 02-03, The Answer plays all 82 and the Sixers have the 11th offense in the game, while in 03-04 he plays with a hamstring injury which eventually sidelines him for the latter half of the season, resulting in Philly being the 26th offense of the NBA.
Now, to the Sixers only being good because of their defense and not because of Iverson...
With Iverson: 50-21 (.704)
Without Iverson: 6-5 (.545)
Sure, an 11-game sample may not be ideal, but the tendency is clear. An East powerhouse playing .700 ball becomes an around .500, mediocre team. That's how much you can realistically achieve with very good defense and no offense.
And let it be known that I have no intention of negating those Sixers' defensive prowess. Snow, McKie, Lynch, Hill, Mutombo - these are all very good to excellent defensive players. You're really pushing it with Mutombo being helpful on offense, though. He was a stiff with no jumpshot and no post game. He could finish layups... if he managed to catch the pass. Few people remember he's one of the worst cases of stone hands in recent memory. If you want to find a somewhat helpful offensive player on that roster, you look at McKie, not at Mutombo.
I don't consider Iverson the GOAT, I don't think he was a flawless player or person, I don't think he had no defensive help in Philly and I don't even think he was the best player in the league in 2001 (Shaq and Duncan were better), but he still deserved the MVP for reasons mentioned at the beginning of this way too long reply. But your description of AI is just disrespectful and horribly misguided and I won't stand for that. Thanks to the TS% generation, AI is so universally shouted about and "known" to be overrated that I think he may actually be becoming underrated now.
TL;DR version: Allen Iverson is one of the greatest scorers in NBA history who had a very positive impact on his team in his prime, as proven by statistical measures, impact estimating stats that look beyond the boxscore, as well as common sense. Stop using TS% and TS% only to evaluate players. Less knowledgeable people may believe you and you would be doing them a great disservice.
Now... one last question for the TS% generation representatives here... does Adrian Dantley happen to be your GOAT?
