Philadelphia 76ers: The Curious Case of Andre Iguodala

Philadelphia 76ers swingman Andre Iguodala isn't as good as he thinks he is.

He has a misguided infatuation with his jump shot, despite the fact that he shot 34.1 percent from three feet and beyond this past season.

He appears to have a slightly inflated opinion of his skills in isolation situations—an opinion formed in large part due to his freakish athleticism.

And—perhaps more than anything—he desperately wants to be considered one of the elite wing players in the NBA. But let the record and the statistics show that Iguodala is simply not talented enough to lead a team to any prolonged success in the NBA playoffs.

Those in the pro-Iguodala camp would note the fact that he fills the stat sheet better than nearly anyone in the league. Last season, Iguodala averaged 14.1 PPG, 6.3 APG, 5.8 RPG and 1.5 SPG, despite suffering through a number of nagging injuries.

During last summer's FIBA World Championships, he was the ultimate jack-of-all-trades, doing whatever was asked of him by the coaching staff. In a setting where he wasn't asked to carry the burden on the offensive end of the floor, Iguodala thrived.

"He did a lot of intangible things for us," said Minnesota power forward Kevin Love, who also represented Team USA at the World Championships.

And therein lies the problem.

For a team that is desperately seeking a superstar, intangibles simply aren't enough. In order to be considered a franchise-level talent, a player needs to be dominant on the offensive end of the floor—a trait that Andre Iguodala will likely never possess.

That said, he isn't as bad as most 76ers' fans think he is, either. 

For all of his shortcomings on the offensive end, Iguodala may be the premier wing defender in the NBA. Using the "Simple Ratings" system devised by 82games.com (a variation of John Hollinger's player efficiency rating), no one in the league was more effective at shutting down his defensive assignment than Iguodala. 

On average, Iguodala held opposing players last season to a level of offensive production similar to that of Keith Bogans. For the uninitiated, Bogans averaged 4.4 PPG, 1.8 RPG and 1.2 APG for the Chicago Bulls last season.

The funny thing about lockdown perimeter defense is that it doesn't show up in the box score. So unless Iguodala visibly harasses a player such as LeBron James or Dwyane Wade into a 7-for-23 shooting effort, it may be hard for the typical fan to appreciate everything that the 6'6" swingman brings to the table.

Offensively, the Sixers were a much-improved team once Iguodala assumed the point forward role in early February—a move that relieved much of the burden from young point guard Jrue Holiday. Iguodala's assist-to-turnover ratio last season was a sparkling 3.06-to-1—the best rate for any non-point guard in the entire NBA.

Yet despite this, the level of disdain of Sixers fans have with Iguodala is at an all-time high. His subpar performance against the Miami Heat in the first round of the playoffs this past April (11.4 PPG) didn't do much to help matters, either.

Iguodala's gift is also his curse, in a way. He has been blessed with so much athletic ability that he often makes the difficult look mundane. Because of that, expectations of his potential are often overestimated.

After the 2007-08 season—a campaign in which he averaged 19.9 PPG, 5.4 RPG and 4.8 APG—many thought Iguodala's ascent into the upper echelon of NBA small forwards was a foregone conclusion.

Ever since that year, however, his scoring average has steadily decreased, while his assists have consistently risen.

It's as if he made a conscious effort to become more of a playmaker than a scorer, despite the fact that he could probably assume both roles, even while maintaining his bulldog-like intensity on the defensive end of the court.

So just who exactly is Andre Iguodala? It's hard to say; things never quite appear to be black-and-white when it comes to him. If Iguodala were a color in the Crayola crayon box, he would undoubtedly be some shade of gray.

He is the personification of "maybe"—a man whom none of us will ever fully understand unless we become members of his inner circle. When asked after the Sixers' first-round playoff defeat if he wanted to return to the team next season, he gave a bizarre, non-committal answer about how it has always been his dream to play in the NBA. 

He easily could have answered the reporter's question in the affirmative, as most players would have done in that situation. But by refusing to do so, he remained the same indecipherable enigma that Sixers fans have become all-too-familiar with over the past seven years.

One of the few things that we know with relative certainty about Iguodala is that he'll be wearing a Sixers uniform at the start of next season. Despite the rumors that he might be traded for Golden State Warriors guard Monta Ellis, the Sixers' front office has repeatedly expressed their desire for Iguodala to remain in Philadelphia.

We also know the following: Andre Iguodala isn't a bad player, nor is he a bad fit for head coach Doug Collins' system. But if the Sixers are to have a successful playoff run, Iguodala simply can't be the best player on the team.

That much is certain.