No he actually is not bad at all..... Certainly as good as Tracy....And he does give consistent effort on D as well...It is just the size advantage that hurts him.....
No, really, he is that bad. Iverson is one of the worst individual defenders in the league. It's shocking how a guy that is supposed to live by his quickness is always taken off the dribble by whoever he's supposed to be guarding. Fast, slow, glacial, whatever speed guys just go past him at will. Sasha Pavlovic was blowing by him the other day. Sasha Pavlovic.
Michael Curry has said otherwise, calling him "solid" defensively... He was not a slouch with those Larry Brown Sixers as well, when he was the MVP.
That's coach speak for "he sucks." And Iverson was never a good defender. He gets steals because he dives into the passing lanes (which, of course, often results in the guy he should be guarding getting a wide, wide, wide open shot), but he cannot keep anyone in front of him, cannot handle any physical contact, and pretty much everyone can just shoot right over him. In Philly he was surrounded by an entire team of great defenders to make up for his shortcomings.
Yet, people think someone, like Iverson is a better defender than Hinrich. Because, he....gets more steals than Hinrich. Flawed logic.
AI has never been a good defender in his career. His fundamentals are very poor. The most noteworthy thing he does is gamble for steals. His flaws were covered up somewhat by the great team defense the Sixers played under LB. But his stints with the Nuggets and Pistons has exposed AI.
That's because he hates practice. He probably never had a sitdown session with his coach/trainer and watched tapes and practiced basic offense/defense when he was young so he never learned how to run an offense or defense probably. Such a shame, AI could have been CP3 before CP3 if he only practiced. Damn, now I'm talking about practice! Not the game...just practice
