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Who would do better carrying an otherwise average team to higher levels?

Is this serious? Iverson didn’t carry anything, that 01 finals team won with their defense a defense which AI had nothing to do with. Drob was the best offensive and defensive player when he took them to the WCF.

What? Lol

Iverson made it out of the 2nd round of the playoffs once in his entire career, and he outright missed the playoffs in 4 of his 10 years in Philly. He didn't carry his team far at all - except for one fluke Finals run in a historically weak East. That was also the only year he won 50 games. (He also didn't carry his Denver team beyond the 1st round, and they had Carmelo, Kenyon Martin and Camby.)

Meanwhile, Robinson won 55 or more games in 5 of his 7 pre-Duncan years in San-Antonio (winning 47 and 49 the other two times) in a tougher conference. His playoff success wasn't great, but the competition was brutal.

Seriously, even if David Robinson was Karl Anthony Towns defensively, this would be DRob.

I wish you would have picked someone lower on the food chain than Robinson. I wouldn’t mind having this discussion of Iverson vs a Top 50-60 guy all time, but it’s not really a debate against someone as good as Robinson.

I think those Philly teams are overrated defensively but that was certainly their identity.
Iverson vs DRob is DRob but Iverson is being underrated. Efficiency is whatever but covering 30% of team scoring is rare. Like Westbrook his team needs to be specifically built but no problem. He clearly got old fast(out the league 4 years from Philly). Missing the PS in last year in Philly is one thing but are we really saying he had to in his injury season and his rookie/sophomore season?

No-more-rings wrote:Is this serious? Iverson didn’t carry anything, that 01 finals team won with their defense a defense which AI had nothing to do with. Drob was the best offensive and defensive player when he took them to the WCF.

The 01 Sixers had a better PS ofrense than defense btw but the answer is still clearly Drob lol

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AWGXXX wrote:

No-more-rings wrote:Is this serious? Iverson didn’t carry anything, that 01 finals team won with their defense a defense which AI had nothing to do with. Drob was the best offensive and defensive player when he took them to the WCF.

The 01 Sixers had a better PS ofrense than defense btw but the answer is still clearly Drob lol

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I figured this would get brought up, and I'll just say i think that's due to a combination of them playing better offensive teams than defensive ones plus perhaps some random variance. I think 20 some game samples like that can have somewhat fluky results in regards to ORTG and DRTG. Basically when it comes down to it Drob's defense is more impactful than Ai's offense imo, and if look at the other sides of the ball the overall gap only grows for Drob.

GYK wrote:I think those Philly teams are overrated defensively but that was certainly their identity.
Iverson vs DRob is DRob but Iverson is being underrated. Efficiency is whatever but covering 30% of team scoring is rare. Like Westbrook his team needs to be specifically built but no problem. He clearly got old fast(out the league 4 years from Philly). Missing the PS in last year in Philly is one thing but are we really saying he had to in his injury season and his rookie/sophomore season?

I'm not sure why you keep saying that. I've never read anyone say they're the best defense of all time, just that they won with defense and not their offense. What do you mean by they are overrated? They were a top 5 defense.

Drob is a top 5 floor raiser of alltime maybe even top 3

bizarre thread

If the Admiral had never made a basket in his career this might still be him

DRob is on the shortlist of all time best floor raisers. I think Lebron, Kareem and DRob are my top three all time. Iverson is not even in my top 20...maybe not in my top 50.....

Weird thread. A better discussion is how AI would do he played for the Larry Brown/David Robinson Spurs in the early 90's. Those two made a great duo.

Presumably you are playing him instead of Willie Anderson or Sean Elliot next to Mo Cheeks/Rod Strickland at the 2; if so you are making your backcourt really small defensively and (assuming Iverson refused to change his style as he didn't in Denver/Detroit/etc.) taking shots away from the much more efficient David Robinson and Terry Cummings while adding better playmaking. Not thrilled with the locker room chemistry of Iverson and that young group either.

I think Iverson actually hurts those teams; they don't need an inefficient floor raiser because, as you said, those were good teams. They just needed to grow, stay healthy, and grow cohesive around David Robinson (those were his 1st two years in the league with a nice young group who didn't develop properly plus Terry Cummings who was DRob's best teammate pre-Duncan.

penbeast0 wrote:Presumably you are playing him instead of Willie Anderson or Sean Elliot next to Mo Cheeks/Rod Strickland at the 2; if so you are making your backcourt really small defensively and (assuming Iverson refused to change his style as he didn't in Denver/Detroit/etc.) taking shots away from the much more efficient David Robinson and Terry Cummings while adding better playmaking. Not thrilled with the locker room chemistry of Iverson and that young group either.

I think Iverson actually hurts those teams; they don't need an inefficient floor raiser because, as you said, those were good teams. They just needed to grow, stay healthy, and grow cohesive around David Robinson (those were his 1st two years in the league with a nice young group who didn't develop properly plus Terry Cummings who was DRob's best teammate pre-Duncan.

To be clear I'm bullish on Robinson, I think bullish versus norms on Robinson as a first option (absence of a credible, 2nd, third option makes you vulnerable to planning), lowish on Iverson.

And you have more of a point when there's Cummings and one of the positive contributor point guards.

Even so, as a release valve as a second (or third if with Cummings, all healthy, even so when any of the three go to the bench can keep 2 on) credible generator of good shots ... and such a talent upgrade from Willie Anderson, and Anderson might have been no great shakes on D in the time regarded (graded as a C in the Barry books after '91, then a D [i.e. the lowest possible in a system designed to include 10th-12th men etc] after '92, though B's earlier) - and it's not like backcourt D improved will Del Negro, Daniels, Johnson, Knight, Ellis etc for those considering later years. And I think there is some potential for upside for those early SA offenses (at a glance, fairly pedestrian).

I guess that one could flag up possible chemistry issues (though I've seen views leaning that SA lockeroom was too overtly Christian).

And that (I don't know where to get better playoff impact stuff, caveat emptor on taking this too seriously, small samples, uneven competition, noise ...) unlike Robinson (at least where we have the samples) Iverson's team's trended significantly better with him off the floor in the playoffs.

Still, worse with Iverson seems a strong take.

Wa

No-more-rings wrote:Is this serious? Iverson didn’t carry anything, that 01 finals team won with their defense a defense which AI had nothing to do with. Drob was the best offensive and defensive player when he took them to the WCF.

I voted Robinson but that 76er offense that was bad with Iverson could not even make the playoffs without Iverson. Iverson did warp defenses. Their best offense was rebounding Iverson's misses. They were a horrible offensive team. Iverson was good at carrying the load at low efficiency. I am not sure how peak Iverson would work with a good offensive team. Iverson had already declined when he played for the Nuggets.

SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:Wa

No-more-rings wrote:Is this serious? Iverson didn’t carry anything, that 01 finals team won with their defense a defense which AI had nothing to do with. Drob was the best offensive and defensive player when he took them to the WCF.

I voted Robinson but that 76er offense that was bad with Iverson could not even make the playoffs without Iverson. Iverson did warp defenses. Their best offense was rebounding Iverson's misses. They were a horrible offensive team. Iverson was good at carrying the load at low efficiency. I am not sure how peak Iverson would work with a good offensive team. Iverson had already declined when he played for the Nuggets.

Iverson had not been terribly successful with scorers (Coleman, Van Horn, Big Dog, etc.) so Philly built a team of all defensive specialists around him. You are right that they were probably worse off without him (though Owly says that their on/off in the playoffs implied that they were worse with Iverson). However, on a team with good offensive option who are more efficient than Iverson, Iverson is taking shots away from better shooters -- and if you don't think Iverson is still going to take those shots, we have different takes on him. I did (and will) say that Iverson will have some positive effect from the fact that he is a superior passer, appreciably better than Willie Anderson. I just doubt it will counter the issues on defense, shot selection, etc. that Iverson brings.

Again, if Iverson had been drafted straight out of college to a team with veteran leaders like David Robinson and a strong coach like Larry Brown (or Popovich) the way Tim Duncan was, I think he could have been a very different player and a much better one . . . though with less flashy PPG numbers which so his fans might have not been fans. This might have even worked if he's a rookie on those 90 and 91 Spurs teams though they might take a couple of years to learn to play as a team; but not prime, set in his ways, Iverson -- the one that actually existed in the NBA.

HeartBreakKid wrote:

GYK wrote:I think those Philly teams are overrated defensively but that was certainly their identity.
Iverson vs DRob is DRob but Iverson is being underrated. Efficiency is whatever but covering 30% of team scoring is rare. Like Westbrook his team needs to be specifically built but no problem. He clearly got old fast(out the league 4 years from Philly). Missing the PS in last year in Philly is one thing but are we really saying he had to in his injury season and his rookie/sophomore season?

I'm not sure why you keep saying that. I've never read anyone say they're the best defense of all time, just that they won with defense and not their offense. What do you mean by they are overrated? They were a top 5 defense.

Why you keep saying it? Have I said this before? I didn’t notice this was one of my core basketball beliefs.

However they weren’t a legendary defense. I doubt they get to Finals or be a early 00’s PS mainstay without his scoring/creation. I’ve seen the teams play amazing defense for years and not be a mainstay.
I’ll give a core basketball belief that might be controversial. Uber efficiency isn’t more important than points. Scorers are always pointed out if they lose but more efficient players exist than elite scorers who haven’t won and no one understands why. Not saying efficiency isn’t important but we know with some players we like it’s more about function of the types of shots and not that teams ignore certain aspects of their games also the role of player. Efficiency is important but it’s not more important than given the aspect the game is decided by.

G35 wrote:DRob is on the shortlist of all time best floor raisers. I think Lebron, Kareem and DRob are my top three all time. Iverson is not even in my top 20...maybe not in my top 50.....

Kareem is not on that level as a floor raiser. He missed the playoffs b2b in his prime on 2 different teams/franchises