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One of the best professional basketball players of the modern era may never be seen on a basketball court ever again. Allen Iverson and the Memphis Grizzlies mutually parted ways on Monday after Iverson took a leave of absence to attend to a personal matter on Nov. 7.
Fans that purchased Iverson’s famous No. 3 jersey got to see Iverson play in only three games for Memphis, none of them at home.
In three appearances off the bench this season, Iverson averaged 12.3 points and 3.7 assists per game, far below his career averages of 27 points and 6.2 assists per game since the Philadelphia 76ers chose Iverson with the first overall pick in the 1996 draft.
Love him or hate him, Iverson was one of the best players of this generation. Iverson was the NBA Rookie of the Year in 1997 and was the NBA Most Valuable Player in 2001 after averaging a league-best 31.1 points and 2.5 steals per game, leading the Sixers to the NBA Finals before falling to Los Angeles Lakers.
In Iverson’s final full season in Philadelphia, Iverson averaged a career-high 33 points per game and also chipped in with 7.4 assists during that season before being traded to the Denver Nuggets just 15 games into the 2006-07 season.
Iverson could even be one of the most influential players in the history of the NBA. There was a time in the game where you would be hard-pressed to find cornrows or numerous tattoos on NBA players before Iverson came into the league. Culturally, Iverson was a trendsetter.
After being traded to Denver, Iverson willingly took a back seat in the scoring department to Carmelo Anthony. Iverson averaged 24.8 points in 50 games for Denver after his trade from Philadelphia, and then in 2007-08 season averaged 26.4 points per game.
Iverson was traded to Detroit after three games in 2008-09 in a deal that included NBA Championship winning point guard Chauncey Billups (who played high school and college basketball in the Denver area).
Some say Iverson wanted his release in order to join LeBron James and Shaquille O’Neal in Cleveland in what could be James’ last season in Cleveland before becoming a free agent this summer.
It only took Iverson three games this season to realize his marriage with the Grizzlies was going to be a rocky one. Iverson—who has averaged over 41 minutes per game throughout his career—was only playing a shade over 22 minutes per game and was coming off the bench to spell second-year point guard Mike Conley.
Iverson thought he would be the main point guard in Memphis in a line-up that looked pretty solid on paper. Expected to join Iverson in the starting lineup was an outstanding young nucleus of O.J. Mayo, Marc Gasol, Rudy Gay, and Zach Randolph. Had the Iverson experiment worked, Memphis might have been a sleeper to claim a playoff spot in the Western Conference.
Instead, we might have seen the end to a fantastic career. Iverson was nearly impossible to contain one-on-one and nobody could ever question his effort. In 2004 with his Sixers ahead by over 20 points against the Boston Celtics, Iverson was seriously injured diving for a loose ball that most players wouldn’t have attempted to claim when ahead by such a margin.
Iverson also gave fans one of the greatest press conference sound bites of all-time. “We’re talking about practice, man.”
A player with Iverson’s talent and heart deserves a better send-off. Hopefully he can join a contender and get well-deserved championship ring before he finishes for good.
If there was one word to describe Iverson, it would be misunderstood. His high school career was marred by an incident at a bowling alley in which Iverson spent time incarcerated for his alleged actions. Iverson has claimed his innocence for 15 years since the incident in Virginia.
A lot of traditionalists couldn’t get past the street slang, the hair, and the tattoos. If you look at his talent and his numbers, Iverson was one of the greatest NBA players of all-time.
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