75 Greatest NBA Players (NBA 75th season celebration?)

[bigeastbumrush]

Quote: Originally Posted by ojandpizza

Cima, what the **** does “the 1 in the 15-1” even matter? if you read what you quoted I mentioned his MVP. I said Joker made the list based on the same criteria that Giannis did and I would be fine with removing them both. But if I were to add Iverson and still allow Joker/Giannis to qualify he is not the player I would remove first to give Iverson a spot because he’s been better the past two post seasons than half the people on this list.. “Joker simply could not do what AI did” and Iverson couldn’t do what Joker has done either. Iverson had a great crossover, and could get off his own shot as well or better than any other 6’ and under player who’s ever played.. but his game lacked lots of substance outside of that. Too small to be a good defender, not a great passer, not even a great scorer by any means as it took him 46 minutes and 28 shots to get his 30 points. But there is substance to basketball outside the highlight real, outside of getting up lots of shots. Like Kobe said perhaps all players should feel fortunate that Iverson wasn’t 6’5”.... but he wasn’t so... Joker this past two seasons had a combined playoff PER of 26.9, if it was enough games to qualify he would rank only 4th behind Jordan, Mikan and LeBron for his career... his top year (last year) is the 33rd highest ever, Iverson’s best season is 239th. His top box +/- score is 15th, his other 164th, Iverson’s best year ranks 200 and is his lone season in the top 250. He was the single best player in all of last years playoffs, and knocked off this years Clippers which is a substantially better feat than “the 1 in 15-1”. He led all of last years players in the playoffs in PER, BPM, OBPM, WS/48.. His playoff offensive rating is a 122, good for 3rd in league history currently, Iverson narrowly cracks the top 250 and 249. Joker’s per 100 possession stats are 34/15/9, Iverson 36/5/7 but the TS% is 61 vs 48. He’s the best passer in all of basketball (if not the best at least on a level playing field with Bron, CP3) and just picks apart playoff defenses. He and Iverson both accounted for 45 points per game with scoring and assisting Joker last year Iverson in 2001, dead even, with Joker playing 7 less minutes and taking 13 less shots per game. All while rebounding, and making various non box score plays for Murray with his ability to play off Joker screens. Not too mention Joker just makes everyone around him better, which basically the exact opposite of Iverson’s entire career. Murray’s ability to play off Joker’s unique ability to be a point-center, his screens, passing, inside out game, helped him make huge jumps in his game this year. Iverson’s biggest claim to something like this is that he carried a team to the finals. But that team was a middle of the road offense team who did as well as they did because they were elite on defense. And he was the worst defender of the group. Dikembe was credited with more win shares than Iverson in that playoff run, and obviously there is far more too it than just that but Iverson’s sky high usage paired with high volume scoring and mediocre PER is basically James Harden but substantially less efficient than even playoff James Harden. And cima its incredibly hypocritical to be so high on a player like Bron and not be able to realize how great Joker has been. There hasn’t been another player in the last 30 years with that combination of scoring, passing, efficiency other than LeBron. Dudes playoff run last year was 33/17/11 per 100, with a league leading PER of just under 30, just narrowly missed 50/40/90 and a TS% just a tad under 60%.. Admittedly Joker comes in to every season looking a little out of shape and starts off looking pretty mediocre. But every postseason (the last two is all of them) he’s been a top player in the league. If there were “first team playoffs” he would have easily made the last 2 of them. Him being slow and boring doesn’t change that. But like I said before, I would be fine removing both Giannis and Joker.. but Iverson likely wouldn’t be my pick to replace them. I don’t know what separates him from a good chunk of other payers if they were putting up 25-30 shots a night. Kyrie, Dame, they would be the same, and possibly do it more efficiently. I just feel like he gets less impressive as time goes on as there are seemingly more and more guys who can do what he did. And cima for as much as you were on the Kyrie is a bad leader train I’d love to hear you justify how Iverson was a great leader. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not sure if you answered my question.

Did you watch AI play?

To talk about any lack of defense is criminal because he was a huge steals guy.

I just can’t with this slander. This comes off like a Skip Bayless who caught game highlights off of Sportscenter.

[ojandpizza]

I’ve watched AI play dating back to Georgetown, I’ve watched him play in person even. I’m actually a fan of his, I’m a fan of him after retirement and the way he gives the new guys their props, even bought a couple pairs of his shoes back in the day. And I’m a huge fan of him as person because he legitimately feels like he just has love for everybody he comes in contact with. Have 30-50 of his cards stashed away somewhere as well. My brother was a big fan of his, there is a nearly 10 year age gap between us, he had the jersey, sleeves, finger bands, all of it lol.

Personally I don’t consider him a good defender at all. He was great at getting steals, had quick hands, James Harden is the same way. But he was never a good defender. Plenty of defensive backs rack up interceptions but consistently get burned and give up big catches and TDs as well.

I don’t discredit steals all together, forcing a turnover has defensive value. I don’t even discredit gambling as it can lead to the other team making mistakes. But he couldn’t really “guard” anybody. A lot of those steels were gamble plays as well and while the 3 possessions he got a steel might be displays of excellent defense he was on the court for 80 other possessions as well. I think the fact that he never made a defensive team paints a good picture of how little people actually thought of his defense. Not that those teams really mean anything, but a name as big as Iverson leading the league in steals is typically all those media guys need to vote someone to a defensive team and it still didn’t happen.

[ojandpizza]

To clarify by “in person” I meant when he was at Georgetown. They played Arkansas at the Pyramid. Probably saw him live 3-4 times as a pro.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jfsolo]

Yeah, AI is a player that you can't really have a discussion about if you don't think he's as great as the other person does. Folks want to fight you if don't think he's top 20, let alone top 50.

[ojandpizza]

Quote: Originally Posted by jfsolo

Yeah, AI is a player that you can't really have a discussion about if you don't think he's as great as the other person does. Folks want to fight you if don't think he's top 20, let alone top 50.

I’ve caught it here myself for how highly I’ve ranked him in the past, but a lot of guys have made big names for themselves since we used to have daily “player list” debates in here. It’s just tough for me to give him the edge when you start playing the “greatest” game. I appreciate how hard he played and what he brought to the floor, there haven’t been many players as exciting and polarizing as him to play the game. But I just don’t feel like he had a positive impact on winning basketball for the majority of his career.

I’m willing to even cut him slack on lots of things. Like mentioned before I’ll give him some defensive credit for being able to rack up steals and be a solid gambling defender. I’ll even cut him some slack on his inefficiency and chucking style of play. He is after all only 6’ tall, and some of his teams were specifically built to hand him the large bulk of shots. I cut him some slack for some of his teams being poor, he didn’t always have a great cast around him.

The question is how much slack do you give him on certain things before giving in to the other side of it. Even ignoring the “not winning basketball” argument, or the stats posted in my previous post.. out of all players who have played 30,000 career minutes in the 3 point line era only Jerry Stackhouse has a worse career eFG%. Of all players from the same era with 3000+ playoff minutes he’s dead last, yes worse than Westbrook. He’s rated as a negative on defense, his career playoff on/off split is a negative, of the 72 players who have average 22+ points per 75 possessions for their career he ranks dead last on eFG%, dead last in TS%... 97 times have players averaged 28+points per 75, Iverson is 3 of those 97. If you sort them from worst to first by eFG% his 3 years are 1st, 3rd, 7th, by TS% 1st, 2nd, 13th.

It’s not like he’s just inefficient. He’s the least efficient volume scorer in all of modern basketball. He wasn’t making up for that with a lethal outside shot to create spacing for teammates, he wasn’t turning his insane usage into easy baskets for teammates to offset his inefficiencies like Harden or Westbrook do, he’s not also giving you lots of rebounds, or defensive versatility, he didn’t mesh well with quality teammates or do the things to make the mediocre ones better, he never thrived in a system that didn’t give him all the shots, never led a high level offense, etc.. like I said in my first post it’s just not surprising to me that his teams (for the most part) just weren’t successful or underachieved, it’s not surprising the worst Team USA we ever had had him as the leading minutes man and shot taker..

He’s “better” than plenty of guys on this list, but maybe not so much when you factor in that basketball is played 5 vs 5. It seems like so much is riding on the fact that he has scoring titles, went to the finals, and was exciting to watch that the context behind most of that is lost, or simply given too much weight.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Damn how did I miss this thread?

Quote: Originally Posted by dubcity

Maybe if he'd kept up the production of that 5-6 year run he had in his prime he'd be in there. Yao at least had the excuse of a career ending injury. Dwight is just Dwight.

Dwight is just Dwight?

What does that even mean?

[ProfessaPackMan]

...........

[AlexBrady]

Quote: Originally Posted by jfsolo

Yeah, AI is a player that you can't really have a discussion about if you don't think he's as great as the other person does. Folks want to fight you if don't think he's top 20, let alone top 50.

Iverson shot too much despite being a poor outside shooter, initiated many offensive sets with his dribble, and took too many chances on defense. He was incredibly quick, courageous and creative but best suited to coming off the bench. Everyone loves the guy who controls the ball but there are many aspects to the game and 80% of the game occurs off the ball. This is precisely why I prefer complete guards like Dennis Johnson and Jimmy Cleamons over Allen Iverson and Pete Maravich.