A.I May Be the Best Player in the NBA Today Yet to Win a Championship!
Cut the kid some slack. So what if Detroit is struggling, so what if Detroit may miss the playoffs, so what if Denver is better without him? That's not all his fault.
A.I. has been sacrificing a lot this season (18.0 points per game: career low). Denver needed a true point guard and they got one in Bliupps. Michael Curry is a first year head coach and is still trying to get a starting lineup, which would provide his team with the most success.
It's not his fault he's a shoot-first guard. Aren't most shooting guards shoot-first players? He's not a point guard. He's just trying to do what's best for the team.
All the A.I. haters out there need to stop. He just may be the best player in the NBA to never win a title and that includes "King James" and "CP3."
Hey, you may call me crazy, but I have facts to back up my wild opinion.
1. Scoring
Now let's start with the thing that Iverson is best at: scoring
Iverson is 16th on the all-time scoring list (23,960). Only Shaq has more points than Iverson among active players (came the same year as Kobe).
Iverson is second among active players in career scoring (27.1), trailing only LeBron James.
Iverson has 79 40+ point games and 11 50+ point games. He also has four scoring titles (99-00, 01-02, 02-03, 04-05) and has four seasons where he averaged at least 30 points per game, including the '05-'06 season, where he averaged 33.0 ppg as Philly's point guard and still averaged 7.4 assists.
He has the second best career playoff scoring average, just behind Michael Jordan.
And if you think that's all in the past, he was third in scoring last season in Denver behind Kobe and LeBron and he wasn't even the main scoring option in Denver (it was Carmelo Anthony).
This season, A.I. is on a team where there are lots of players that can score the basketball, and they have balanced scoring. Yet he still comes up with 18 per game.
2. Defense
Allen Iverson may never be the defender people want him to be. He's six feet, guarding larger two-guards and big point guards.
Heck, some people even blamed Marbury and him for the U.S team not winning the gold in the 2004 Summer Olympics. People feel that the guard position didn't have the defense that would stop the other teams' quick guards.
Yet he's one of the best stealers in the NBA history. He's 12th in all-time in steals with 1,963. He averages 2.2 spg in his career. He also has three stealing titles (00-01, 01-02, 02-03).
Many people may say steals is an overrated statistic, but if a player like Chris Paul leads the league in steals and is considered the best on-ball defender among point guards, then you can't take nothing away from A.I.
3. Athleticism and Toughness
If you watch how Iverson plays, the way he sacrifices his body time and time again, there's no question that he's among the toughest players in the NBA. He's always playing hurt, he guts it out each and every game.
Plus, he's one of the most athletic players in the NBA. I've never seen any player as quick as Allen Iverson. He's the fastest player in NBA history (not now because he's 33) and it's hard to even keep up with him. He has the best crossovers in NBA history.
He could have been in a quarterback in the NFL if he wanted to. He was a great high school quarterback. He used his speed as well as his arm to his advantage. He reminded many of Michael Vick.
4. Achievements
In the 2001 season, he led a team of role players to the NBA Finals. He won MVP that year.
In almost all his years in Philly, his team's talent never reflected the team's record. They always used to overachieve. Allen Iverson didn't have another great scorer next to him until Webber came to Philly.
A.I. always had to do everything for Philly. That amazed the basketball world and everyone gave him the respect King James and CP3 gets now.
But since he went to Denver and Detroit, he kind of underachieved. Both teams had lots of expectations and he wasn't allowed to the same things he did in Philly because of the talent level he had surrounding him.
He's a former NBA Rookie of the Year, two-time All Star MVP, was a three-time All NBA First Team, a three-time All NBA First Team and an 10-time All Star.
As you see, Allen Iverson is more than a short player that can score. Just like Wade, he can play both shooting guard and point guard at an superstar level. He's the best player in NBA history under 6'4" and is the best shooting guard in the post-Jordan era (and that includes Kobe). That's my argument as to why A.I. is the best player in the NBA today to never win a title.
