Why Is Allen Iverson Considered To Be so Great? He was a chucker..

I'm ready to defend the notion that Robinson was a more productive player on offense than Hakeem during the regular season by pretty much any metric you want to use because he was - at least until injury/ Duncan, because he simply WAS.

The naked appeals to emotion over stats on this board based in the 95 wcfs are so very tired. What was Hakeem's PER during that series? 30? What was Robinson's, 20-something? Now its invalid because.....?

 

Sam what your saying I agree with. I've only noted this multiple times. This ISN'T what I'm arguing. What I'm arguing is, that isnt the be all end all. AI was more productive offensively then Nash.... So? Shared Abdur Raheem was more productive than a bunch of players...and...?
Sorry Sam, your MO is to make a mountain out of a mole hill arguing the wrong thing, even though I repeatedly said otherwise

 

Have you read wages of win in depth? They would certainly argue Iverson is extremely inefficient.

My argument is akin to theirs. I think they go to far because WP probably isn't wholly accurate metric either. They'd tell you AI should have never been an all star much less MVP.

I'm not being entirely subjective and saying I think Reggie should be valued more highly and trying to find flaw in PER. Partially, sure. But frankly that's what Hollinger has done.

If I wanted to be as objective as possible, is agree even more with wages of win....

 

Robinson had the best developed work ethic for the daily grind of the regular season of the centers of his era, he was the best regular season guy, but the playoffs are determined head to head, not by your season averages.

That being said, it always struck me oddly that Hakeem and Robinson only played each other once in the playoffs, but you know, if Robinson had won that series, history would probably remember him as the best center of the era, it's funny how two games (5&6) changed the perception of an era (of course it wasn't just the outcome, but the totality of the domination, he beat Shaq in the finals, but he didn't dominate him).

 

I call BS on you watching him play in his prime. He was one of the toughest little bastards I have ever seen

 

No, I don't read them at all, I simply read your article. I ran across them I guess but you have basically doubled my visits to their site.

What makes their position objective? Because it's close to your position? Loony doesn't equate scientific. The usage vs. efficiency discussion has been around for a while. Dean Olliver wrote his book to tackle this issue, basketball reference created their win shares stat to handle it. They value volume scoring, what makes them less scientific and your position more objective?

There have been teams that won it all with volume scorers with above average -- but not extremely high -- efficiency. Teams can build around that.

 

I see what you did there. "A more productive player on offense" is a carefully qualified thing. It's not about efficiency? It's not about greatness? Those two are the things this thread is supposed to be about.

PER is not a bad metric. But it has serious limitations too, mainly due to its dependency on boxscore numbers and does not give playoffs production enough weight. I am pretty sure even you would not argue that Robinson is the 4th greatest player of all time.

The irony is that most people who overrate Iverson appeal to emotion, how "exciting" he was and how tough he was in such a "small frame" etc.

Actually, I have been defending Robinson on this board for a long time. I totally agree that he got a lot of unfair flack simply because he won the MVP and then promptly got schooled by Hakeem in the playoffs. He's probably one of the most underrated players on this board.

 

I was stupid enough to sit through 6 pages of this garbage before I realized it's being brought to this world from the same riveting minds as "Would Larry Bird be a Scrub in Today's NBA".

 

hey now, that was my thread.

And it was a GREAT thread.

 

Remember Jon Stewart's predecessor? Even in a.I.'s prime, the then daily show host had some guest on who reverses grilled him on his top whatever nba players, he got mad that he didn't include ai. Craig something.

 

one of the best cross overs this league has ever seen. just search youtube for Allen Iverson Anke Breaker. I haven't looked myself, but I have no doubt whatever is there should suffice.

 

This whole thread is about Iverson being an inefficient chucker. Why we're even talking about the 95 WCF's is beyond me, considering that Iverson was at Georgetown at the time, but offense is at least somwhat germane to the topic at hand. But if you want me to go furether fine - Robinson was both more productive AND more efficient on offense than Olajuwon during the regular season at his peak. And damned good on defense too, probably less of a gap there than on offense between the two.

PER tries to measure defense by blocks and steals but these are just proxies for man-to-man defense which doesn't show up at all.

Either way, with respect to Robinson and Olajuwon, their numbers in those categories aern't that much different, if anything Olajuwon gets a boost.

Where Robinson more or less blows Olajuwon away during his peak seasons were his superior scoring and passing numbers.

It doesn't take an advanced metric to tell you that Robinson averaging just a hair below 30 points and 5 assists a game on one of the slowest paced teams in the league with a better TS% is contributing more on offense over the same sample set than somebody doing 24 and 3.....(and somebody laughably implied earlier that Robinson was surrounded by superior talent...sure if only Hakeem had Vinny del Negro and Willie Anderson...) PPG, PER, ORating, Offensive win shares - use whatever you like, it's simply a better set of numbers for the Admiral and there's nothing anybody on this board can say to change that. Frankly you'd think most would be content with the ultimate revenge in 95 but obviously rewritign history in support of childhood heroes is more important.

PER gives playoffs great weight - in fact, at least 100%. It's this crazy number called "PER" when measured over playoff games (and for the record, Iverson (as well as Olajuwon) has a higher PER in the playoffs than in the regular season).

 

I'm not sure what anyone here is arguing anymore. Is there anyone arguing that AI is better than a first-ballot HOF and all-time great? If not, who is overrating him?

 

Jay argues that as a player, in terms of impact, Iverson is overrated. I think what Jay means in that quote is that Iverson is a HOFamer based on career achievements, which is obvious. He won MVP. All MVPs are in the Hall, no matter what. MVP is a Hall of Fame ticket. So it's not really debatable that he's a clear HOFamer and an all time great.

How good / impactful he actually was as a player, once you look past the fame and "greatness"? That's the discussion.

As far as my and Jay's debate, we probably spent too much time on side topics like PER or TS% or what not. But in essence, our disagreement is about Iverson's value as a scorer. For example, Jay thinks that Iverson's PER is exaggerated. He thinks that as an offensive player, Iverson even at his best is much worse than someone like Paul Pierce or Nash. He thinks that Ray Allen might have 29 PER some years, if allowed to shoot as much as Iverson. And I disagree.
Jay made some mathematical arguments, which I questioned, and that's why we got sidetracked by PER a little. But in essence, it's about how good was Iverson as a scorer.

 

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I don't feel like going into the Robinson-Olajuwon thing, but I do feel like going into another topic thanks to the PER thing: Iverson has a better PER than Nash, which thus comes with the implication that Iverson was a better offensive player than Nash. And since it's not like Nash can claim to be a better defender than Iverson, the idea is that Iverson is better than Nash.

To put it bluntly, I think that's ridiculous, given that Nash has plenty of incredible offensive feats which Iverson never met. Not to mention, how much of that PER can be attributed to the fact that Nash took three or so seasons to develop, meaning that he had a bad PER, while Iverson came right out?

 

Its just fun to use some statistical analysis. We all like seeing if stats can support the "eye test"

For those that like the Win Share stat, most notablely
Win Shares/Per 48 Mins. The top 250 of all time http://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/ws_per_48_career.html

It goes in "tier" groups really.
Tier 1: .200 win shares and above is top shelf (Yao Ming is #20 ALL TIME who'da thunk)
Tier 2: .170 up .199 great players. The next tier. This is the top 50
Tier 3: .150 to .169 very very good. Top 100.
Tier 4: .130 to .149 solid players. Top 200 where most the list is at.
Tier 5: .120 to .139 good players. From fringe to occassional All Stars.

Iverson overall in the entire list:
#207. In between Mario Elie and Richard Jefferson.

There are 73 Hall of Famers on that list if you include Allen Iverson as a Hall of Famer

Iverson's would-be ranking amongst that?
#67 in HOF WS/per48. And its only gonna get progressively worse cuz there's around 10-15 guys above him who will eventually get in the Hall.

It would make Iverson a lower rung "Tier 5" Hall of Famer.

(AI is NOT the only high usage player with low average win shares. "Big Dog" Glenn Robinson has higher usage% than DR J and Hakeem. Same with Jerry Stackhouse. Both NOT in top 250 average win shares.)

 

I have NEVER liked Iverson's image. Your opinion there I think the SAME thing about reality television.

But on that note, a trashy musician on a trashy reality show doesnt mean that they make bad music. We want it to be connected together but it always doesnt. Same with thug culture. And its not like Iverson was the first to engage in hooligan mischief. Its kind of been a common thing in the major sports world.

The NFL Hall of Fame notably doesnt consider off-field character too much in their selection process. (Where baseball does consider it) So to me character concerns doesnt factor so much into on-court performance. If Royce White and Terrence Williams had the same attitude they have but contributed to Rockets 18 PER each, no one WOULD CARE THAT much about their character.

( I like the irony of the comment "Scrubs can play")

All what you say there makes sense about efficiency though, can agree.

Though as we all know Kevin Martin doesnt operate the same way as Allen Iverson. If you made them switch roles both would be out their comfort zone, so its also the WAY they get shots off that counts too

Still its a wonder to me overall how some players earn getting the "green light" from coaches and the team, some more carte blanche launching than others.

 

Nash vs. Iverson as offensive players, that is not ridiculous at all. I think it's a fair discussion.

Btw, why wouldn't PER be lower in poor / development years?

PER is a flawed stat. But people also go over their heads to misuse it and want it to show things that it was never meant to show. If one is going to use it, then like all stats, it has to be used with brains, not as a standalone knowledge elixir for all things basketball.