Iverson was overrated. His team mateswwere underrated.

Iverson has a great story that someone should make a blockbuster movie about, and they should get the director of the Green Mile to direct it. It would be a hit. 15 year old single mother gives birth to a kid in the projects, he grows up hanging around the wrong people and wrongfully gets charged to 15 years in jail at the age of 17. After several months, the governor pulls strings to get Iverson out of jail then Iverson gets recruited to the Hoyas where he tears **** up. 1st round pick of the draft, still involved with the wrong crew while in the league, then meets Larry Brown who becomes like a father figure despite a lot of bumping heads. Then the movie ends with Iverson slaying Goliath in game 1 of the NBA finals. [expletive deleted] awesome. What a movie! However, Iverson's loveable story is part of why it's so easy to overlook the signs he was an overrated NBA player.

Iversons's efficiency was atrocious, everyone knows that, and the "he took bad shots because his team mates sucked" excuse is a weak excuse. Plenty of 1st options have had bad team mates and scored efficiently ie. Kevin Johnson, young Lebron, Orlando TMac, Raptors Vince Carter, Brandon Roy, young Wade ect.

The other thing people like to say is "Iverson took a weak team to the finals", but Iverson couldn't even make the playoffs until the Sixers got Theo Ratliff, Aaron Mckie, Matt Geiger, George Lynch, and Tyrone Hill in via trade (they traded away Jerry Stackhouse who was the 3rd overall pick) and free agency in 1999. The Sixers literally went from bottom of the East to third in the East following those acquisitions, so clearly Iverson's team mates got results despite the misleading box score stats.

The Sixers defense ranked 5th in 99' then 4th in 2000 while their offense ranked 23rd then 26th. Exactly how much is Iverson helping his team if the offense was that bad?

When Theo Ratliff got injured during the 2001 season, the Sixers traded Ratliff and Tony Kukoc for 4-time defensive player of the year Dikembe Mutombo, and the Sixers topped the Eastern conference with 56 wins, then made it all the way to the Finals where they won game 1 in overtime (btw Kobe sucked this game, he got 15 points with 22 shots and 6 turnovers).

He has an inspirational story, phenomenal highlights, and his popularity helped revive the NBA from the loss of millions of viewers following the retirement of Michael Jordan. Give him credit where credit is due, just put that all aside when talking about impact. When you look at all the information, all the context, instead of just looking at the points Iverson scored and the results Sixers got, I think it becomes pretty clear that Iverson was indeed overrated.

 

The fact Sixers offense ranked 26th seems to get blamed on his team mates, but why is it that there have been many players who have built a good offense with bad team mates? Does anyone have a theory?

 

I will give you that. Iverson became a much better/smarter player towards his late 20s and early 30s.

 

The biggest problem I have with Iverson fanatics is their complete dismissal of the impact the role players on that Sixers team had. After all the roster changes/additions in 1998, the Sixers went from last in the East to 3rd in the East, and the defense improved from 18th to 5th--there is no way anyone should deny the impact of these role players in light of these facts.

 

I think extremes breed opposing extremes, so fallacies like "Iverson took a bunch of 'scrubs' to the finals" gives birth to fallacies jumping on the other side of the see saw--the Iverson is overrated side. The truth lies in the middle, Iverson's team mates weren't scrubs and Iverson wasn't overrated.