Is Iverson a top 10 Scorer Ever?

[Mujahydeen]

Top ever? No. Top 10 for the last 20 years? Absolutely. In no specific order:

Kobe
Harden
Curry
T-Mac
Lebron
KD
Iverson
Carmelo
Wade
Dirk

Just fell short:

Pierce
Lillard
Arenas
Kyrie
Ray Allen

This is the thing, people leave the 'skillless' big men off lists like this. Giannis may not have the natural talent of AI, but he's a much better scorer. Beat scorer doesn't mean 'best at getting buckets in ways you find skillful or fun to watch'. It just means 'best at getting buckets'. Once you add in guys like Shaq, Giannis, and Embiid, there's no way AI cracks the top ten

With the bolded, I think there's a mix. If you're assisted on most of your buckets, I wouldn't say you're one of the best scorers in the same way, or I'd detract some of that efficiency value and put you closer to the guy who scores a bit less efficiently but generates more of their own buckets. If it's the end of the game and you are stuck and unable to generate easy looks and take over when needed, that's a big problem.

That depends on the assist, a lot of basic entry passes to Shaq when his teammate was credited with assist were still buckets generated by Shaq where he did the work of establishing position and putting the ball in the basket. It's different than the likes of Clint Capela ending up alone under the basket because someone needed a double team.

[The_Hater]

I’m quite confident in saying that a player with a career TS of 51.8% is not one of the 10 greatest scorers of all time. However he was one of the 10 greatest players ever in hunting down low percentage shots.

[BadaBoom]

Per 100 Duncan was 33.5 points per 100 on 24.1 FGA. AI was 38.8 on 34.4 FGA. 5.3 more points per 100 on 10.3 more field goal attempts. That's absolutely bonkers bad.

Context is key.

Let's take a look at AI's numbers in Denver where he wasn't a one man offense :
per 100 30.7pts on 22.7 FGA
Duncan on the same time frame :
per 100 31.0pts on 23.9 FGA

He did not have good efficiency numbers when he was at philly mainly because he was the easy focus for the defense. I think that his numbers at Denver are proving that he was able to be pretty efficient for a high volume scorer like him

[dhsilv2]

Per 100 Duncan was 33.5 points per 100 on 24.1 FGA. AI was 38.8 on 34.4 FGA. 5.3 more points per 100 on 10.3 more field goal attempts. That's absolutely bonkers bad.

Context is key.

Let's take a look at AI's numbers in Denver where he wasn't a one man offense :
per 100 30.7pts on 22.7 FGA
Duncan on the same time frame :
per 100 31.0pts on 23.9 FGA

He did not have good efficiency numbers when he was at philly mainly because he was the easy focus for the defense. I think that his numbers at Denver are proving that he was able to be pretty efficient for a high volume scorer like him

2008 was one of Duncan's worst seasons offensively. It's his only season outside of his last that he shot below league average eFG%. And it's AI's best season.

2007 Duncan 31.4 on 22.2 FGA.

The problem with your context with AI isn't that he was on some poor offenses and that dragged him down. I don't really have a problem with that to a degree. The problem was that often an AI shot was often worse than the average shot by someone at random on the team.

AI's a hall of fame guy without a doubt in my mind. But a guy like say TMAC was also a problem in a lot of similar ways to AI. On awful teams he often was carrying. Not the most efficient guy, but he was better than AI by a lot and he peaked pretty darn high. Now I don't want to spend an hour debating if Duncan or AI was the better scorer. The fact I can make a compelling case at all is all I need.

BTW look at the 2002 spurs and tell me that Duncan's help was really all that much better than some of AI's teams in philly. And please look at the ages cause 3 of the top 5 guys in the rotation not named Duncan were 32 or older. And 5 of the top 8 were...

[lonniefire]

Yea he is especially the damage he did at his height.

[Duke4life831]

I mean when it gets to the point of choosing the top 10 of all time, you have to consider efficiency. And once efficiency is brought into the conversation, the argument for AI completely dies.

His efficiency isn’t just horrible when compared to efficiency numbers of today, he was very inefficient in his own time. You can’t be a top 10 scorer of all time while being as inefficient as him.

[khufure]

Iverson is a mercurial figure for sure. I really really loved his toughness. There was zero quit in him. The dude took a lot of punishment against guys much bigger & heavier for a decade+. A lot of them weren't soft fouls like you see today, it was intentional hard fouls that were meant to cause pain and make you think about taking it to the hoop again.

Physically Iverson was so far behind Jordan, mainly cause of his height. Iverson had to go with wiry short speed because he didn't have a choice. So when you bring up a discussion with EVER I'm going to say no.

There's also the mental aspect. Iverson had zero quit in him, and was mentally tough. But I wouldn't say it was always for the benefit of winning.

Watch on YouTube

There's even a hilarious remix of this

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[Ballerhogger]

Kobe , magic , lebron , Kareem , wilt , wade , Kevin Durant , Dirk , Melo , Curry . There’s 10

[HoopsterJones]

No he’s not. He had an insane amount of shot attempts because he had the green light and his team was trash offensively.

[CLosP]

Did someone really post the top 10 all time FG% and use that as a reason? Lol most of those guys besides Shaq really have an argument.

Also, why compare Iverson to Tim freaking Duncan when it comes to efficiency? Lol I mean comparing him to Kobe, T-Mac, Pierce, Marbury etc makes more sense at least.

I wouldn’t necessarily have Iverson in my top 10 but hard to gauge efficiency metrics with the defensive minded team he had around him he was their volume scorer. Someone mentioned T-Mac having a similar roster which is true, but T-Mac’s size helped him at least shoot over guys while Iverson was attacking the paint shooting over bigs.

[NO-KG-AI]

I love AI, but I wouldn’t take his scoring game over Hakeem or Bird either. Definitely not over Barkley.. and that’s just the non obvious ones.

I think his perfect role would have been more as a mid 20’s guy that could create for everyone and get shots whenever he pleased if the situation arose.

Jordan
Lebron
Shaq
Kareem
Hakeem
Bird
Durant
Wade
Barkley
Kobe
Curry
Dirk

Those are off the top of my head, without question better scorers.

[ATRAIN53]

Is he one of the 10 guys on the planet I would count on to make a basket when I needed it-

yes

The guy is right behind MJ for all time PPG in the playoffs and not even 6 feet.
He averaged more FTA per game than MJ over his career (reg season)

[dhsilv2]

Did someone really post the top 10 all time FG% and use that as a reason? Lol most of those guys besides Shaq really have an argument.

Also, why compare Iverson to Tim freaking Duncan when it comes to efficiency? Lol I mean comparing him to Kobe, T-Mac, Pierce, Marbury etc makes more sense at least.

I wouldn’t necessarily have Iverson in my top 10 but hard to gauge efficiency metrics with the defensive minded team he had around him he was their volume scorer. Someone mentioned T-Mac having a similar roster which is true, but T-Mac’s size helped him at least shoot over guys while Iverson was attacking the paint shooting over bigs.

You don't get extra credit for being shorter than someone else in basketball. To be top 10 he has to be over guys like Malone (both moses and Karl), Baylor, Dirk, Wilt, Hayes, Wilkins, KG, English, Miller, Barry, Gilmore, Ewing...

He might be better than some of them, but you don't get any pass for being short.

[celticfan42487]

He's top 10 in jumping into other men's chest and that's about it.

[Hellcrooner]

Yea he is especially the damage he did at his height.

generally to his own team

[JN61]

Top ever? No. Top 10 for the last 20 years? Absolutely. In no specific order:

Kobe
Harden
Curry
T-Mac
Lebron
KD
Iverson
Carmelo
Wade
Dirk

Just fell short:

Pierce
Lillard
Arenas
Kyrie
Ray Allen

McGrady is just laughable... he has just 3 years of above Iverson's career average scoring years while having basically 8 years of 20 FGA...

Edit. Lets open up this even more:

top 15 scoring seasons between these players:
Iverson 06 -33pts
Tmac 03 -32.1pts
Iverson 02 -31.4pts
Iverson 01 - 31,1 pts
Iverson 05 - 30.7 pts
Iverson 00 - 28.4 pts
Tmac 04 - 28pts
Iverson 03 - 27.6pts
Iverson 99 - 26.8pts
Tmac 01 - 26.8pts
Iverson 04 - 26.4pts
Iverson 08 - 26.4pts
Iverson 07 - 26.3pts
Tmac 02 - 25.6pts
Tmac 07 - 24.6pts

From that list span of 98->08 Iverson has TS% of .518 (same as career avg). Tmac has basically same career avg TS% and barely above TS% for 4 year span as is above of .537. Which are 4 of his 5 best TS% years. If we use same for iverson selecting 05 to 08 gives us TS% of .546. Better than peak McGrady scoring efficiency while still putting up 29.1 PPG... Average McGrady only broke once... McGrady isn't even in same universe with Iverson on such lists.

[70sFan]

Not even close.

[Hussien Fatal]

Top ever? No. Top 10 for the last 20 years? Absolutely. In no specific order:

Kobe
Harden
Curry
T-Mac
Lebron
KD
Iverson
Carmelo
Wade
Dirk

Just fell short:

Pierce
Lillard
Arenas
Kyrie
Ray Allen

McGrady is just laughable... he has just 3 years of above Iverson's career average scoring years while having basically 8 years of 20 FGA...

Edit. Lets open up this even more:

top 15 scoring seasons between these players:
Iverson 06 -33pts
Tmac 03 -32.1pts
Iverson 02 -31.4pts
Iverson 01 - 31,1 pts
Iverson 05 - 30.7 pts
Iverson 00 - 28.4 pts
Tmac 04 - 28pts
Iverson 03 - 27.6pts
Iverson 99 - 26.8pts
Tmac 01 - 26.8pts
Iverson 04 - 26.4pts
Iverson 08 - 26.4pts
Iverson 07 - 26.3pts
Tmac 02 - 25.6pts
Tmac 07 - 24.6pts

From that list span of 98->08 Iverson has TS% of .518 (same as career avg). Tmac has basically same career avg TS% and barely above TS% for 4 year span as is above of .537. Which are 4 of his 5 best TS% years. If we use same for iverson selecting 05 to 08 gives us TS% of .546. Better than peak McGrady scoring efficiency while still putting up 29.1 PPG... Average McGrady only broke once... McGrady isn't even in same universe with Iverson on such lists.

Yes i agree mcgrady doesnt belong in this conversation. Iverson had a much better scoring impact.

[hoosierdaddy34]

Wouldn’t it be amazing to to see Iverson with today’s freedom of movement rules and an inability for defenders to just hold him all the time?

The rules are such an advantage to players of today over what The AI and other scorers of his era had to deal with.

[shotsquatch]

MJ, Kobe, Harden, KD, Dirk, Trae, Curry, Carmelo, Wade, Dirk.

There's ten. I don't see an argument for including AI in this tier of player.