Maybe Allen Iverson Just Isn’t Very Good
Teams keep getting better when the Answer leaves (wikimedia)
Sports Illustrated’s Steve Aschburner wonders why we don’t see Allen Iverson signing on for a supporting role on a contending team:
Allen Iverson ought to be next. The ‘01 MVP, nine-time All-Star and four-time scoring leader has the individual résumé for such a move. He presumably has the financial wherewithal to take the requisite pay cut after 13 seasons of superstar wages, including the $76.7 million extension he landed in ‘03 and the “lifetime” endorsement deal (whatever that means) he signed with Reebok in ‘01. He even has the game for it — think instant offense, sixth man, the sort of player a coach could turn loose off the bench to mess with the opponents’ second unit almost at will. At 34, Iverson still is quick enough, slippery enough and crafty enough to change games.
He concludes that “What he doesn’t have, though, is the attitude for it.”
Alternatively, maybe after trading Iverson for Andre Miller made Philadelphia better and then trading Iverson for Chauncey Billups made Denver better, teams are starting to figure out what some people have been saying for a while: Allen Iverson isn’t a very good basketball player. He scores a lot because he shoots a lot, but he’s turnover-prone and subpar at rebounding. And the fact that in order for Iverson to be effective he needs to be paired with a point guard who’s big and strong enough to guard opposing two guards is a major downside.
52 Responses to “Maybe Allen Iverson Just Isn’t Very Good”
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July 10th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
He’s just too beat up because of the style of his play. I think Iverson is one of the greats, and I’ve never put any credit in any of the negative stuff circulating about him, but a 34 year old Iverson isn’t a reliable first option anymore.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
If Iverson “isn’t very good”, then how exactly did his Sixers’ team make the Finals earlier this decade?
July 10th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
This post is just Petey-bait. It’s correct, but’s it’s Petey-bait.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Iverson and the Sixers made the Finals because the Milwaukee Bucks got jobbed by the officials. David Stern fixes various aspects of the NBA game. The 1985 draft where NY landed Patrick Ewing, allowing Scottie Pippen to travel with the ball every time he dribbled, the ‘01 eastern conference finals, the fact the Timberwolves have never improved their draft lottery position. I love the NBA and the game for the most part, but I am convinced that David Stern has it out for small market teams.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
You obviously don’t remember the awesomeness that was Tyrone Hill.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
AI confuses people, because he is an incredible athlete with incredible skills, and he can do things on a basketball court that no one else can do. Unfortunately, those incredible skills aren’t actually valuable to a winning basketball team.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Your argument is off the mark, and citing Malcolm Gladwell certainly doesn’t make it any stronger. For one thing, Miller and Billups are point guards. Iverson’s not. I’ve never been a huge Iverson fan, but he was damn impressive in his prime. And Aschburner is right, if AI were willing to play the role of scorer coming off the bench (think Ginobli or Ben Gordon a few years back) he’d be a huge asset to a contender.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Iverson is really being a bitch about accepting the fact that he’s an aging star, which is obviously nothing to be ashamed of. The fact that he was even considering signing with the fucking Grizzlies is amazing since he’s always insisted he’s all about winning. He’d be the ideal 6th man spark plug for a lot of very good teams, but it seems he just wants to be the Man and jack a lot of shots. He’s just being stupid about the whole situation.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Iverson just “isn’t a very good basketball player” could only come from MY whose hoop posts more inane as they pour out.
I agree that he’s done (and were I a GM wouldn’t sign him to any kind of a contract) but back in the day he was a stud. The guy took Mutumbo, Tyrone Hill, Aaron McKie, and Eric Snow to the finals. He also happened to be voted league MVP that season. No amount of number crunching by the likes of Hollinger will convince me (or should convince anybody) that AI wasn’t hall of fame great.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Oh man, you just ruined Petey’s Friday night. That’s just cold.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I know you can’t stand Allen Iverson, but you should really revise your remarks to read that Allen Iverson isn’t a good basketball player after reaching his 32nd birthday. His size and the pounding he took for 10 years aged him considerably, and now he doesn’t have much of a role. Iverson in his prime took a really mediocre Sixers team to the NBA Finals and carried much worse teams – the Keith Van Horn/Matt Harpring variety – to deep playoff runs. Yes, Larry Brown put the right team around him – the same can be said of Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and pretty much every other superstar player this side of Jordan.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Oh man, you just ruined Petey’s Friday night. That’s just cold.
Next he’ll be telling us that Dave Weigel looks terrible in a Speedo. Show some compassion, Yglesias.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
At least Matt was able to find a correct photo for this basketball post.
Other than noting that, I have no comment on this typically idiotic foray into basketball commentary.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Allen Iverson was a tremendous basketball player in his prime and remains a potent one today. He’s also enormously difficult to play with because of how much he totally dominates the ball. He leaves no room for anyone else to do anything offensively except play off him. He’s not good enough to do that 30-35 minutes a night any more. But if he went to Cleveland, Orlando or Boston and did his thing with the second unit 15-20 minutes a night, he could decide who wins the NBA title next season.
Mike
July 10th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
I kind of wish Joe Dumars had taken a pass on Charlie V and used the money to resign Iverson and field the “screw you gladwell” gordon/iverson back court.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Allen Iverson is a great scorer when he’s allowed to shoot constantly. Beyond that, he does nothing for your team. He doesn’t create offense for others, he’s a defensive liability, and he is a turnover machine. Unless he takes on the Vinnie Johnson role (which he clearly won’t), there is no contending team that he makes better. In fact, he would make most of them worse because he would destroy the offense and cause holes on defense.
And it is perfectly correct to observe the fate of the teams he left. He was in the backcourt on Denver, and the team was underachieving. Carmello was struggling and their defense was weak. They quite literally took Iverson off the court and replace him with Billups and the team almost made the finals. In all honesty, they were the second best team this year as the pathetic Magic proved with their finals performance.
If I were playoff team, I would avoid Iverson like the plague. He needs to sign with the Bobcats where he can jack shots in peace with his old chum, Larry Brown.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
AI was definitely a good player in his prime but he was always overrated and he probably won’t be very effective moving forward. The 00-01 Sixers made the Finals largely because of their defense. Having Ratliff and later Mutombo protecting the rim made Iverson’s defensive gambling more effective.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
That team would be specifically constructed to make sure there were at least 8 50pt performances: the 4 games each Wade and LeBron would get to play against that laughable backcourt.
I would, however, enjoy watching a reality show focused on the ways each of the undersized ballhogs would try to sabotage the other to be the ball-dominator. It would be like spy vs. spy with more tattoos.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
This could easily be the most moronic thing that Matt has ever written on any topic, probably dating back to his pre-K days.
Besides the obviously indefensible statement that AI isn’t a good basketball player, there’s (1) the utter absence of any evidence offered in support of the statement that Denver and Philly got better after he left, (2) a failure to identify what standard is being used to measure “improvement,” (3) a complete failure to consider other non-AI factors that might have contributed to improvement, even if there was any, and (4) in the case of Philly, any consideration of the passage of time between AI’s departure and this alleged “improvement.”
Why don’t you apply the same level of analytical skill to your basketball posts that you do to other topics?
July 10th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Iverson is still a pretty good player: the problem is that the thing he’s good at (taking a high number of shots with so-so efficiency) isn’t so valuable to really good teams (especially if the guy resents coming off the bench and can’t play defense).
July 10th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
As a Sixers/Hoyas fan, I’m biased towards AI, but I think Matt’s long time hater affair with the Answer betrays his b-ball ignorance. He strikes me as a guy who’d rather examine a stat sheet than watch the game. AI has always taken a lot of shots, turned the ball over and rebounded poorly. Yet he was the league MVP, a perennial All-Star and took us to the finals on his back. I really can’t recall the last MVP who wasn’t a very good basketball player. It’s just steaming hot weak sauce to insinuate that AI was NEVER a good player because now at the end of a stellar career he’s lost his first step advantage and can’t make the plays he used to.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
So, A.I. is essentially A.O.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
“This post is just Petey-bait. It’s correct, but’s it’s Petey-bait.”
It’s not correct, though.
Folks like Matthew who follow basketball via boxscores don’t understand Iverson’s game because so much of what Iverson provides his team is from how defenses open themselves up when they try to contain him. Folks like Matthew don’t see this because they’d need to actually watch and pay attention to the action to notice. It’s why they don’t see the value of players like Iverson or Turkoglu. Shot-creation actually exists, even if folks like Matthew can’t see it.
And it’s not just Petey-baiting. Professional hoops writers have been making a living by ignorantly bashing Iverson for more than a decade now. Ignorant Iverson-bashing sells, just as long as you don’t care about getting the story correct.
I’ll just repost what I posted in at the end of a hoops thread from a week or so ago before I go get my drink on. The gist of it is that to figure out how Iverson (or any shot-creator) helps a team, you need to look not at his stats, but the stats of his teammates. Shot-creator are valuable because they allow role-players on their team to be more productive:
—–
The moment when Iverson moves strong side to weak side, the defensive help being sent means the rest of the offense is playing 4 on 2 1/2. That’s the moment the offense needs to be keyed around. Put Iverson on a team like Houston with a coach like Adelman, and Battier and Ariza will find themselves with a significantly higher number of wide open 3’s per game than otherwise. Landry will find himself with the ball under the rim before the defense gets there a significantly higher number of times per game. Scola will find wide open 12ft shots a significantly higher number of times per game. And so on.
If you look it up, you’ll note how every single player who played meaningful games for the Nuggets in both ‘07-’08 and ‘08-’09 – Carmelo, J.R. Smith, K-Mart, Kleiza, and poor Anthony Carter – had their TS% drop by a significant amount in ‘08-’09. The amount of attention Iverson was receiving when he had a live dribble consistently got them higher percentage shots in ‘07-’08.
Carmelo .568 to .532
J.R. Smith .603 to .576
K-Mart .553 to .523
Kleiza .585 to .552
Carter .531 to .490
See a pattern?
July 10th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Matt, I really like your blog and respect your political analysis, but your basketball posts are very, very bad. I’m frequently astonished at the things you say on this topic. In fact, reading your basketball posts makes me wonder if you are similarly ill-informed on other issues I know less about – if I’m simply believing you because you state your positions authoritatively.
Certainly blog about the NBA if you wish, but I would strongly recommend not making Grand Basketball Pronouncements. They’re pretty embarrassing.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Petey, that is correct. Creating shots is really valuable, and that is Iverson biggest skill. But contending teams normally don’t have so much trouble creating shots, and Iverson’s age, attitude and lack of defensive skill make taking him a risk for those teams. Even a team like Houston, who really could use him, would have to think about the viability of an Iverson-Brooks backcourt combo.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
“Allen Iverson isn’t a very good basketball player.”
That statement would be true if it was followed by anymore. Early in his career, he was one of the most unstopable players on the court and took and mediocre Sizers to the Finals and was the only team to win a single game against the Lakers in those playoffs.
By the way, how does Gladwell square his “your eyes deceive you AI sucks, you need to look at advanced stats and deep analysis” with the thesis of Blink?
July 10th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
I think Matt’s sin here is hyperbole. I think most everyone can agree that overall AI is a good player, but he is still overrated in many circles. Petey, AI did have a (unsung) great season in 07-08 but he fell off quite a bit last year. Also, you are cherry picking a bit because if you go back to the 06-07 season, the Nuggets were actually a bit better offensively when Iverson was off the floor. No doubt he spreads the floor, helping the team out sometimes, but he is still often jacking up crappy shots that don’t usually go in.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
The best thing about MY’s basketball posts are the comments. That’s where the real intelligent and value added analysis is.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
The best thing about MY’s basketball posts are the comments. That’s where the real intelligent and value added analysis is.
Don’t forget the togetherness! There’s no kumbaya moment quite like Al congratulating Petey on his sober analysis.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Petey’s post is interesting, but incomplete. If you look at these pages for team offensive efficiency:
http://basketballreference.com/teams/teamyear.htm?tm=DEN&lg=n&yr=2007
http://basketballreference.com/teams/teamyear.htm?tm=DEN&lg=n&yr=2008
and the 2006/2005 splits, you see the same pattern: the teams with Iverson were slightly more effective offensively and worse defensively. When he left the 76ers, the offense cratered and the defense improved slightly. *But in no case did the won-lost record change substantially*. And that is simply inconsistent with the statement that he was a great player in those years.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Is there a more overrated advanced stats system than Berri’s WP? It overweighs rebounds and does not take system into account. Only in WP would you be lead to believe that Jason Kidd in 2008-09 deserves to be in the MVP conversation and Shawn Marion deserves max money. It’s a perfectly fine system to measure teams in aggregate, but it’s an atrocious system for measuring individual contributions.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
I also find this whole thread fascinating that even among people wonky enough to read Yglesias, the population appears to be divided among those who understand the concept of opportunity cost and those who don’t — and to listen to them, they live in different worlds.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Not that I agree with Matt’s overall post, but this comment couldn’t go unchallenged:
I know the answer to that . . . because the East at the time was absolutely atrocious, such that even the best teams weren’t that much better than the worst teams. From the time of the Bulls last win in ‘98 until the Pistons won in ‘04, they won exactly six games over five NBA finals. Basically, it was a crapshoot — any East team had a shot at getting to the Finals, as long as they made the playoffs, and any East team had a shot at the playoffs. Iverson didn’t lead the 76ers to the Finals so much as the team got lucky enough times that they were able to go instead of other equally bad teams.
This isn’t to say that Iverson is good or bad. It’s to say that it’s not that surprising that the 76ers made it to the Finals at some point between 98 and 2004. The East just really, really sucked.
(And BTW, the way to tell is not the final records of the teams, since East teams played East teams twice as much as they played West teams. Better to compare the overall East v. West)
July 10th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
C.S., the point I was making was that that particular Sixer team had no business making the playoffs, let alone winning the conference. AI singlehandedly carried that team.
Perhaps, just perhaps it isn’t AI’s skills (albeit quite diminished the older he gets), but his attitude that has affected his career. I think George Karl might be the only coach that AI hasn’t destroyed, and Karl damn near got broken off this year.
July 10th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
AFAICT, Yggy isn’t saying Iverson was never a good player. He’s saying he’s not worth the trouble now. Which, you know, has the virtue of being true.
July 10th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
He led the NBA in steals for at least three years even through the playoffs, was top 5 for that as well as scoring for at least 5 years, and singlehandedly carried a Philly team that couldn’t hit squat to the finals. But that’s the type of environment that you need(ed) in order for Iverson to thrive- where he can roam for steals and create shots and not worry about having to distribute the ball/turning it over. You can get him to play team ball, you just need to make team ball Iverson-centric. But a lot of his “magic” was dependent on his quickness and aging has caused him to lose a step. Still one of the all-time greats.
July 10th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I think Sam Penrose’s stat line is ultimately more compelling than Petey’s. Iverson is brilliant at creating shots, and he allows everyone else on the team to score more efficiently when he’s on the floor, but he himself does not score very efficiently and he’s a defensive liability.
The thing about AI is that his skill set, at his size, was fairly unique. He created matchup problems for opponents. He was exciting to watch in his prime. But all of that is perfectly consistent with the observation that he was always somewhat overrated as an all-around player and not the sort of guy who will turn a playoff-caliber team into a champion.
If you have a hapless lineup and you want to make them competitive, AI is your man. If you have a solid defensive team with a big-time scorer playing the 3, as the Nuggets did, then he’s probably only going to make your team worse.
July 10th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
What Petey said.
I’m surprised Matt isn’t a baseball fan, because he does have a wonkey, sabermetric way of looking at sports, if not the world. Between this post and yesterday’s Shawn Marion three-point-shooting post, it seems that Matt looks at basketball like Nate Silver looks at baseball, which is a big mistake.
Baseball is conducive to the Silver/Gladwell box-score/egghead/quantitative analysis because every single game played by every single team is played EXACT THE SAME WAY USING THE EXACT SAME SYSTEM. There are no competing systems in baseball, just different styles of play (some teams perfect a power game, other like to run the bases and move players forward).
Therefore because the game itself is a “Y Constant”, you can fairly accurately predict individual production by an analysis of a player’s stats. And because there are no competing systems of play in baseball, it is also much more difficult to hide a player’s deficiencies. If he can’t throw, he will be a liability in the outfield. Therefore a free swinging, weak fielding left fielder in Texas will still be a free swinging, weak fielding left fielder in Chicago. No system is going to make his pop-gun arm look strong.***
You can’t predict individual success and production in basketball or football (regardless of what team you play for) based almost exclusively on quantitative measures. Yesterday’s Shawn Marion post pretty much proved that. Why did his three-point attempt and percentage fall so drastically the last two years? BECAUSE HE NO LONGER PLAYED IN A SYSTEM (AND WITH PLAYERS) WHERE HE WAS ALLOWED TO DRIFT TO AN OPEN SPACE ON THE FLOOR WHERE HE COULD SHOOT RELATIVELY UNCONTESTED THREE POINT SHOTS. Shawn Marion strengths are his speed and leaping ability and his length, his biggest weaknesses is scoring in traffic and off the dribble. Phoenix hid his weakness and made him look like a better three-point shooter than he actually is (wide-open threes from the corner off a Nash drive and kick). Miami and Toronto preferred to maximize his athletic ability, he slashed to the basket more, and picked up points off his defense. Other than three point shooting, his stats were remarkably similar. In basketball and football, systems are key to an individual players production.
I guess this is a long way of saying “Read Gladwell, learn a few different ways of looking at things, but do not treat him as authoritative.”
*** It’s important to note that the physical barriers to entry are also much less in baseball than in football and especially basketball.
July 10th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
What Jesus H. said. AI in his prime not only took a team with no other player better than Mutumbo to the freaking finals, but due to his astounding ability and never-say-die energy actually won a game against the the Shaq/Kobe juggernaut. Far more talented teams couldn’t.
But if he wants to play a meaningful role now, he’s got to accept the sixth man/spark plug-off-the-bench role (and pay to match). Who knows if he will. But I hope he lives to surprise us another day. On the right team, under the right circumstances, he could easily be amazing again. I’ve seen better players, but I’ve never seen a more exciting one.
July 10th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
I wasn’t an AI fan before he came to Denver, but he really impressed me when I watched him with the Nuggets. My observation when comparing the Nuggets with him and without him is that he was so good and so tuned into the game that his Nuggets teammates seemed to let up a bit (mentally and physically) and AI had to take over because his teammates weren’t keeping up. After he was traded, the Nuggets players (especially Carmelo) had to bear down harder and keep their heads in the game. It’s not AI’s fault that his teammates couldn’t match his intensity.
July 10th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
A lot of people can’t accept the mediocre reality of AI, even after it was made obvious the last two seasons.
The reason “his” team made it to the finals was because they were great on defence in a crappy conference. Not because of Iverson. That’s why the team got worse even though he stayed the same over the next half-decade.
DBerri is right. Deal with it.
July 10th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
All of yall who talkn crap about A.I. is dumb! A.I. is da greatest player 2 ever play da game n i can back dat up 2. He took a team full of weak *** people 2 da finals,most valuable player n 01,4 time nba scoring champ, 3 time steal leader,rookie of da year,made da all rookie 1st team,10 time nba allstar,future hall of famer,can score at will,1 of da quickest 2 ever play da game,n has da best crossover!
July 10th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
What SCMT said in #35. I don’t understand where people are seeing Matthew saying that Iverson was not very good in 2001 or other years long ago. AFAICT, Matthew didn’t say anything about long ago seasons at all. He seems to me to be talking about right now.
It was made pretty clear to me that Iverson is on the decline when Philadelphia improved by trading Iverson for Andre Miller. After all, Miller’s a nice player, but he’s not great. And if the Sixer’s improved by substituting Miller for Iverson, that’s got to tell you something. I note, BTW, that I think defense has a lot to do with it – the Sixers were near the bottom of the league in defensive efficiency in Iverson’s last full season in Philly. In their first full season without Iverson, they improved all the way to 8th in the league in defensive efficiency, without a wholesale turnover in personnel (and with the same coach). That’s not bad.
July 10th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
I really don’t have a dog in this fight, but some of the arguments being used in Iverson’s defense—from “how can he be overrated when he has an MVP?” to “he’s so good he made the rest of his team bad”—incline me in the opposite direction.
July 10th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Yes, the Sixers improved dramatically in 06-07 (the year the AI-Miller trade occurred) by losing three more games than they had the year before. In the last two seasons, they still haven’t won as many games as they did in AI’s last full season. I realize wins isn’t the only metric to use, but it’s at least as relevant as various efficiency measures.
A possible counter-argument has already been posted above: that the Sixers might not have won significantly more games without him, but didn’t lose significantly more either. I’ll just suggest that some rosters are built to win ~40 games without or without a great player; even deity itself can’t make them more or less than they are.
July 10th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Al @ 43:
Yes, at 34 y.o. AI is clearly on the decline, but Matt didn’t write that AI isn’t very good now, he wrote “teams are starting to figure out what some people have been saying for a while: Allen Iverson isn’t a very good basketball player.”
I think the problem a lot of people have with this post is Matt’s way of analyzing basketball: wonky sabermetric principles as the primary determinative to a players skill and value to a game where wonky sabermetric principles do not apply. For someone who makes his living castigating journalists for lazy writing, he turns around and uses the very tools the laziest sports writers and pundits use when writing about an athletes relative worth: the box score.
I agree with Petey. I don’t believes Matt understands how to watch a basketball game.
July 10th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
what was the purpose of saying AI is a subpar rebounder…hes a fucking 6 foot G. and he says this as if AI was never good. evyerone knows hes a volume shooter thought but this article fails
July 11th, 2009 at 1:11 am
I saw AI play in Denver and he hadn’t lost a thing! He was great. While he was playing his heart out – Melo was being suspended for DUI’s. I realize that this writer is simply trying to antagonize, but I believe he is being unfair and I would add “Ignorant”. AI didn’t have a chance in Detroit because they didn’t really want him – it was all about the money. Billups wasn’t really that great in Denver. I noticed he faded pretty badly against the Lakers!
July 11th, 2009 at 1:17 am
Matt’s grasp of basketball rivals William Kristol’s knowledge of Iraq!
That said, Matt’s combo of ignorance, provocation and nonsense has yet to get anyone killed.
So, hey, score one for The Dalton Kid on that front.
July 11th, 2009 at 11:09 am
I would enjoy an explanation from all the irate Iverson supporters why any team in contention should sign him. That’s the point. Name a team with a realistic chance of making the finals, and show exactly how they would benefit from a prideful, grumpy, undersized 34-year old who was a defensive liability and turnover machine in his prime joining the roster.
He made it to the finals because the east was terrible, or turrble, as Barkley would say. They were probably would have been the fifth or sixth seed in the west and beat out in the early rounds. Shaq and Kobe, who would often sleepwalk against lesser opponents, underestimated Iverson’s resolve, which was impressive, and they stole a game. They were then bashed into smithereens.
Both Gladwell and Yglesias are making a sort of word play, attacking conventional understanding of what it means to be a “good” basketball player. If there is no contending team who can benefit from the simple addition of player X (they don’t have to lose anyone, just sign him), then it’s hard to say that player is good.
July 11th, 2009 at 11:13 am
So, based on what I have read, Iverson’s gifts have been his offensive ability to get other people high percentage scoring opportunities.
Unfortunately, he couples this with with low FG percentage himself, and based on the # of shots he takes, it is significant.
In addition, he hurts defensively, from what I have gathered.
Now how much is this worth to you? The NBA has a salary cap. Maybe teams have gotten better, not because Iverson is ‘bad’, but because he hasn’t been $20 million good.
Trades in the NBA have to be fairly close in dollar amounts, so maybe what you are seeing with his departures is that his replacement(s) (usually more than 1 because of his staggering contracts) add more value than he did alone.
Now Professor Berri has been brought up, and I have read his book. Now I am in no position to comment on his syetem I don;t watch much basketball (live in Singapore) and don’t have the maths to really attack his numbers, but I challenge anyone to not look at his analysis of the correlations between salary/awards/recognition and raw scoring totals and not see that there is clearly a psychological overvaluing of raw PPG. Note the use of over-valuing, not that it lacks value, just not as much as some people think.
After reading that section, ignoring his data crunching, I always am leery of the guy who shoots a ton inefficiently but has PPG in terms of how others value him.
In our society is it really surprising that a man with a .425 lifetime FG percentage but who shot a ton might be slightly incorrectly valued…
If you want to compare players and teams after they leave, you have to look at cost, which will determine replacements.
July 11th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Another way to look at this is in terms of monetary value to a team. Let’s face it, NBA franchises don’t exist to win titles, they exist to sell tickets and TV rights, and in that regard AI is a very good player indeed.