Not only that, but he plays harder than just about everyone else in the NBA. You’d be hard pressed to find a bench warmer who hustles more than Iverson, let alone a super-star who averages 30 a game…

That said, I do not agree with everything that he wrote but I do think he was considerably closer to truth than the original article here. Very good post by huh?

Some areas that I take issue with: First off Whitlock never even insinuates that they have similar skills sets (Though In hindsight I do think huh? did a pretty good job of coming up with some similarities) – all he says is that AI could have been the second greatest point guard of all time behind Magic. So your longwinded diatribe on how clueless Whitlock is becomes of some perceived likeness between the 2 players is in response to something that isn’t even there.

Next, I think the primary reason that Whitlock brings race into the equation (as he always will) is simply to show that Iverson throughout his (in my opinion unsuccessful) career has insulated himself from any criticism from the general public because of his hip-hop thug image. For reasons unknown the NBA audience has embraced this whole-heartedly and refuses to see Iverson’s game/career for what it is.

Here’s the bottom line for me – Iverson has been praised his entire career for a number of things but ANYTHING you get from him comes with a trade-off. There are no absolute positives that come with his game. You get a great scorer – that’s great but now that means you have to find an unselfish point who is big enough defend 2 guards. You get someone who is a ball hawk on D – that’s great but now your D is left exposed on the 4 times out of 5 he misses that steal attempt. You get 30 pts/game – again, this is great but it came over the course of 25 posessions.

One thing you are right about is that GM’s ought to be put to task for taking on this loser. No two ways about it – it is a terrible idea to build your team around this guy. But here’s the deal, while in Philly he had a roster tailor made to fit his skill set and it never amounted to anything. The guy is a loser.

As for the assumptions Whitlock (and even you) just made about Iverson’s playing style being a result of his upbringing, I cannot bring myself to make, since i’m not a licensed psychologist. Although I am well aware of Iverson’s upbringing that I have researched or been fed through media, movies, and books, I certainly would not venture to make any assumptions about those as being fact, since I don’t know Iverson personally. About all we do know for sure, is that he was raised in a home by his mother with very little money.

Having very little money has nothing to do with a tough upbringing that breeds selfishness. In fact I would challenge you in that assumption, in my opinion that many low income families have better than average ‘team’ skills as they need to work together as a family to get by and even in some cases survive.

Either way, since I don’t know Iverson personally, and i’d venture to guess that you don’t either, let’s leave our analysis to his on-court play and not his personal life or upbringing which we know very little about from the outside looking in.

I will say that at G-Town he was a “point guard” due to size only. Everyone knew he was a scorer. He’s had a remarkable career in many ways and may be the pound-for-pound toughest guy that I have ever seen play. (Next to MJ of course)

He shoots 42% from the field, 31% from 3, 78% from the line. To be fair, most guys wouldn’t get anywhere near those numbers if they had the workload that AI has. But I think for the single main scorer model to work, that main scorer has to have much higher percentages than even AI has shown. That’s why the single scorer model hasn’t worked very much. Think about Jordan shooting 50% from the field. That’s a big difference from 42%.

Clearly, Iverson is one of the most talented players we have ever seen. But I think he can only function peacefully in the single scorer model, and I just don’t think he is efficient enough for the model to succeed. It’s not the AI isn’t supremely talented. It’s just that the single scorer model literally requires legendary, god-like talent. Most guys in the hall-of-fame don’t even have that.