I can honestly say I feel bad for Allen Iverson… This guy was an incredible, dynamic, scoring machine with ankle breaking speed and the strength of a lion. Some people don't even realize how short he really was (5' 11"), though this had no affect whatsoever on his stature on the court. According to the media it seems like he has been plummeting over the last few years, I feel lost though because he had one off year in Detroit and now everyone talks of his progressive decline. What?!? What years of A.I. did I miss? I look at his stats from Denver and I’m just not seeing it? He still had quite a bit of juice left in that tank.
Iverson’s Denver Years:
Year Ppg. Asts. Rebs Stls
06’-07’ 28.0 7.2 3.0 2.0
07’-08’ 26.4 7.1 3.0 2.0
I don’t know what you may gather from this information, but I can certainly not see any decline in production that would lead me to believe that this player should retire or take a secondary role. Maybe I’m wrong… but I doubt it. Now this brings us to last year with Detroit. His numbers were dramatically lower, but he did face injury and was never faced with any certainty when it came to job security and this would make anyone play differently. He averaged 17.5 points, 5 assists and 1.5 steals a game which is very low for Allen Iverson standards but still pretty good considering what he was dealing with. No year before that was he ever below 22 points per game! So all of a sudden he’s a no talent hack that doesn’t deserve to be playing or starting on an NBA team? It’s common knowledge that he’s not a team player as well, though everyone he’s ever played with thinks he’s a great teammate ...hmmm that’s interesting. I feel like the media is picking on Allen Iverson, making him the scapegoat for all of Detroit’s problems last year and portraying him as some greedy player that won’t accept his diminishing role in the league. If I were in his shoes and had a track record like he did, I wouldn’t be very accepting of some bench role either. The craziest thing to fathom is the fact that so many teams in this league could use a player of his caliber and very few teams can say that their shooting guard position is a lock. A team like New York or New Jersey could certainly use him, and even a team like the Magic could use him as their starter over players like Vince Carter.
According to recent speculation Iverson may return soon. This would be great for the league that once adored everything he touched. Apparently some of his old coaches have been talking with him, telling him not to retire and now he has begun talking with the 76er’s. Having him back in Philly where his legacy began would be the perfect ending for the career of Allen Iverson. He may not get that championship, but he is still undoubtedly one of the 50 greatest players to play this game and will be a first ballot Hall-of-Famer.
So if there is any team out there looking for an answer, “The Answer” is on the market and ready to be in your starting lineup, NBA GMs are fools!
