And the year before his last year, they won 43 games. So in his last 2 years, they won 81 games, and when he left, they won 75 in the next two. Wow. What improvement. Yeah, the Nuggets got better when he left, mainly because AI was essentially done at 33 because of all of his injuries. There are legit knocks on Iverson (his shooting percentage first among them), but the idea teams got remarkably better when he left is not one of them. After he left Detroit, where he played a whopping 50 games anyway, the team went from 39 wins to 27 wins. I'm just saying, the Pistons decline had to do with more than just AI.

Iverson was a selfish, ballhog player. But he also was incredibly intense and played harder than just about anyone, and sacrificed his body to the game (some would say recklessly). As for his "practice" speech, he was right. He was getting criticized because he was injured and he didn't miss a game, but he missed a practice. He's right. So f'n what?

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Posted by tigerpimpbot

Chairman of the Pool Board

Member since Nov 2011

67142 posts

Posted on 2/20/13 at 2:30 pm to Baloo

I agree with everything you said. I disagree with the other poster who said he didn't put out effort. Like you said, he ranted on practice because Larry Brown was punishing him for not practicing hard when he was killing himself every night in the games, not practice, in the game.

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Posted by Bench McElroy

Member since Nov 2009

33992 posts

Posted on 2/20/13 at 2:37 pm to Baloo

quote:
And the year before his last year, they won 43 games. So in his last 2 years, they won 81 games, and when he left, they won 75 in the next two. Wow. What improvement.

You completely missed my point. If Iverson was such a great player, why didn't his team's performance drop off dramatically without him? Look at all the top players in the league who left their teams. The Cavs went from a 60 win team with Lebron to having the second worst record in the NBA the year after he left. The Hornets win total was cut in half after Chris Paul left. Orlando has gone from an above average Eastern Conference team to one of the worst teams in the NBA without Dwight Howard. I can go on and on. A player whose main attribute is scoring has to either bring other things to the table or score at a highly efficient level to make a big impact on the game. Iverson doesn't fit into either category. Hell, if you gave his 22 shots per game to his other teammates, I'm sure they could have averaged 42% shooting from the field as well. What's the difference?

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