Played with Melo... Iverson was a better fit as Denver's no. 1 option. Problem was that they tried to turn him into a PG. then opted to keep Melo. Also he was past his peak by that time. Saying he played with Melo is like saying Francis played with Marbury. They both needed to dominate the ball. I'm fairly certain that Melo can't co-exist with another star player as well.
Melo might have had to come off the bench for those Bad Boys Pistons at the 3 position. Adrian Dantley, Mark Aguire, Dennis Rodman. Good luck beating any of those guys out for playing time. Bill Lambier, John Salley, Edwards > KMart + Nene And you still have one of NBA's greatest combo guard in Dumars and instant offense off the bench in the Microwave. I mean, there was a reason why Jordan could not get out of the East for a couple years, and pretty much reigned the NBA after the Pistons were way past their prime.
That's my point. Iverson's style does not mesh well with another star player. He had quite a bit of talented players besides Melo on that Denver team. The best they could do was a 50-win season. And although Iverson was over 30 years old, he was still putting up 25+ ppg in consecutive seasons. Iverson was a magnificent playing as a one-man team. Adding other good players didn't seem to add a whole lot of winning to his teams.
I wasn't arguing that Iverson's Nuggets were better than the Bad Boys Pistons. My point was that Iverson did have a chance playing with some serious talents. Saying that Iverson never was surrounded by good players is just not true. Denver was doing quite well before Iverson arrived. They didn't improve much after they got him. And they didn't get worse after he was gone.
I think you misread me. Or I wasn't clear enough. My point is that AI didn't have teammates whose talent level warranted his trust, in his eyes.
Well, to be fair, he didn't play much better than Iverson did. He was pretty bad for a lot of games there too.
Iverson is a legend, his crossover will go down as one of the best, if not the best, in NBA history. He won an MVP, carried a team on his back to the finals, was a scoring champ 4 times, his play and personality created rule changes. Dude is an NBA legend and would be, imo, one of the 50 best to ever play the game so far.
