atm rondo/celtics why?

i would disagree with that, bc iversons game fit perfectly into that team, That team was led by d but no1 besides iverson could score, for that team to go to the finals that needed to have someone who would just score like crzy i dont think any1 at the time could have done what ai did for that team

yes, you can still say hes not top 10. Listing a players strengths and ignoring his weaknesses is simply a silly way to argue for a player even if his strengths are such that very few players, if any, have ever matched them.

You're arguing here with people who watch 200+ games per season, who devote themselves to analyzing the sport, and who have career aspirations within the sport. You'd be much better off sitting back and trying to learn from the threadzilla regs rather than debating them because you come across as completely clueless(although I will note that 99% of casual fans are also completely clueless, so I don't mean that to sound as harsh as it does).

He was a top ~30 NBA player most years of his career, and in his best years he may have come close to being top 10 in the league. Due to the construction of those 76ers teams some years, he may have even been top 5 most valuable, but thats mostly due to their unique team construction(the fact that you have to build a team in such a unique way to highlight AI's strengths is actually a huge detriment to his overall value though because it lessens his trade value and it destroys you if he gets injured).

Most casual fans think he was a top ~5 player throughout his career, which is laughable.

If those Suns teams had played in the East during the beginning of the decade, then Nash would most likely have a few finals appearances as well and maybe even a title.

1. Anytime the only player you can find that matches/beats a certain player stat wise for a period of time is oscar robinson that player has to be pretty good.
2. you forgot steals, ai was roughly 1200 and O about 45, so no $
3. When did i ever say i was measuring greatness with stats? JUst simply saying his stats are hard to ignore when making a list of the best players for 1 decade

Meh, all regs do this though. Go into an MMA thread and DannyOcean and MikeyPatriot will be somewhat condescending. Go into a baseball thread and Thremp and KyleB will be somewhat condescending. But all 4 of the guys I just mentioned clearly know their stuff, and if people will sit back and listen to them instead of argue with them then they'd learn a thing or two.

The reason that we come off this way is because we've had these debates many times already, and when we've had these debates in the past its been among several extremely knowledgeable basketball posters. While we were going through these arguments we have attempted to eliminate as much bias as possible and truly listen to the other side of the argument. And so we feel as if we have a pretty good grasp of the truth on issues such as "How good is Allen Iverson?".

And now when some casual fan starts a thread like this, its just kinda annoying. It becomes blatantly clear as we start to debate with him that he doesn't understand stats such as TS%, PER, APM, Roland Rating, win shares, etc. And it becomes blatantly clear that he falls into a ton of logical errors, so much so that we can't even really debate with him because our reasoning will go over his head. So after a while we get frustrated and basically say "Shut up, I'm smarter than you and I'm right", and you all think we are condescending.

We would never been condescending if someone had asked "I'm interested in becoming a smarter basketball fan and understanding why you guys feel things such as 'Allen Iverson is extremely overrated by the general public.'" We would gladly explain things. But we're not going to sit here and continue to try to explain things when its just met by "But look at his PPG!!!".

We're getting perilously close to a cbaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx meme being started. Which would piss off Tyler Durden so I'm all for it.

1. It's Robertson not Robinson(I'd think someone of your supposed basketball expertise would know something like this), and as we've proven about a million times on this forum when you choose ridiculous parameters out of context you can put anyone in ridiculously elite company. I posted a stat parameter awhile back as a joke that the only 3 players to ever meet it were Michael Jordan, Lebron James, and Brandon Jennings. Clearly this shows that Brandon Jennings is already a top 10 all-time player in the NBA.

2. Nice rough career numbers, but massive failure on your part to not figure out that steals were omitted because they didn't track steals in the NBA until 1973-74, Robertson's last season. And based on what we can tell from Robertson's athleticism and elite proficiency in all other facets of the game of basketball, lets just say you're really lucky they didn't keep stats on steals earlier in his career.

3. See #1

pudge i'm all for educating over middlebrow observations but what else are you supposed to do with something like this. it's not like we're working with a thundercat here where the guy is willing to learn/listen

Ive prly watched/played as much bball as ne1 and would say i have as much knowledge or close about the sport as any1 here....now about ai

His real big weakness is that he was not that effecient. ie He didnt shoot all that great and he wasnt the best defender. As far as the shooting went i have 3 main points

1. The way the sixers were structured 00-07 ai had to shoot a ton of shots a game for that team to have any shot at winning cuz no1 else could score. Obv nobody can be as effecient shooting 35 shots a game as they can shooting 20. When iverson went to Den he has the 2 best shooting yrs FG% wise of the decade. BC he had help and didnt have to shoot as much. So yes AI's fg% wasnt as high as others but that doesnt necessarly mean that he wasnt effecient

2. From what people say about iverson in this forum it almost sounds like people thought he shot 30% from the field for his career. Yes he didnt have better fg% then other guards but (revert back to reason #1) his fg% was not terribley worse.

3. Ai shot 80% from the line, not great but very good. Far better then shaq, duncan, lebron. What im saying is he slightly made up for his shooting effecient mishaps on the foul line.


Also if were talking about intangibls ai was not a liability in crunch time like some players on the list nor did he ever choke in the closing minutes. AI was a great player to have take the final shot and played harder then any1 in the league. IMO that shoots his value up a few spots

That was an extremely weak year in the East. Go check out the rosters of the Raptors and the Bucks. And then realize that the 76ers were taken to Game 7 by both of those teams(and Vince Carter missed a buzzer beater that would've won it). It was the perfect combination of positive variance and a weak conference.

Moreover, your logic is a bit flawed. AI is an extremely unique player. He has tremendous strengths and tremendous weaknesses, whereas most star players are much more balanced. The 76ers built their team totally around AI. So just because you couldn't replace an extremely unique player on a team 100% tailored for his skillset, doesn't mean that his overall value is all that great.


As for an actual answer to your question, any PG/SG who can score in bulk and play a ton of minutes would've been able to replace AI on those teams and have comparable results. Guys like Gilbert Arenas, Ray Allen, and Kevin Martin come to mind(in addition to all the obvious superstars). Plus theres a ton of guys who may have been able to fill in for AI on those teams, but we can't say for sure because their team has never asked them to shoot so much so we don't know for sure if they could...I'm talking about guys like Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Chauncey Billups, Deron Williams, etc.

ur stat for jennings was prly 20 games, ais 8 years lol

Assani what makes you and the "other qualified nba people here" so qualified do u have a phd in basketball or are you just self proclaimed qualified

lol you're so clever that you completely missed the point.

another good point. They only had the 13th best offense in the league that year, but the 5th best defense. Dikembe Mutombo, Raja Bell, Tyrone Hill, Theo Ratliff, Aaron McKie, Eric Snow....thats a damn good defensive team.


Their pyth W/L only had them at 54 wins(and keep in mind thats in a very weak conference). As a comparison, last year's Portland team had 56 pyth wins. The AI-led 76ers were not that great of a team. They just played in a really weak conference.

odds cbax pays you $1K?

its hard to find it when you make points like that

he didnt find the stl pg part

Here is a snapshot of Assani from the annual NBA PhD Convention a few weeks ago, taking a vodka cran over to his friend Bobbo and spilling half of it along the way:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/...order_by_asc=Y

Check out that elite company.

Man, if only there were a stat that factored FT% and FTA into your overall shooting efficiency.....


This is why we are so "condescending". Its simply frustrating to argue with someone who doesn't even know about TS% yet. And when he makes ridiculous claims like this:

it just becomes frustrating because its blatantly obvious to all of us that hes a total beginner when it comes to learning about basketball.

damn it, if only we had stats that covered this sort of thing...

EDIT: ****, too late