Best Player to Wear #3?

[BlackNRed]

Get real people, Wade > Iverson far and wide.

[Cajon]

Originally Posted by Marcus13

And Russell Westbrook misses the wide open 3 to ice it

[Jace]

Wade was indeed awful against Chicago.

Again, who is saying the Heat win that title without Shaq? Haven't heard it here. That's ludicrous.

More ludicrous, however, would be anyone siding with Barkley saying Shaq was more critical than Wade to the title.

[Mattsanity]

I chose Wade, but Iverson is the most influential out of them all.

[e-monk]

Originally Posted by Mattsanity

I chose Wade, but Iverson is the most influential out of them all.

asked and answered previously

[Mattsanity]

Originally Posted by e-monk

asked and answered previously

and?

[e-monk]

Originally Posted by Mattsanity

and?

and you can stop being lazy and go back and read the thread or maybe you can be specific about what you think his influence actually was because that is lost on me

(from my pov: his influence was largely negative see also the debacle that was the 2004 Olympic team - we dont want players who lack respect for or even basic understanding of team concepts like showing up for practice or whose style of play is otherwise conducive to the kind of ugly isolation basketball that plagued the late 90s)

[Mattsanity]

Originally Posted by e-monk

and you can stop being lazy and go back and read the thread or maybe you can be specific about what you think his influence actually was because that is lost on me

it's called a coincidence.

(from my pov: his influence was largely negative see also the debacle that was the 2004 Olympic team - we dont want players who lack respect for or even basic understanding of team concepts like showing up for practice or whose style of play is otherwise conducive to the kind of ugly isolation basketball that plagued the late 90s)

you'd rather see the glass half empty. Other than MJ, AI was the reason why people even picked up a basketball, especially around my area.

[Bogg]

Iverson gets overrated because of how lopsided the conferences were for a while. Move the Kings, Timberwolves, and Blazers from '99-'03 to the East and leave the Lakers, Spurs, and Mavs out West and Iverson's a guy who scored a ton of points on teams that lost in the first round every year(a higher-caliber Marbury, if you will).

Wade gets a little too much credit as well, but not as bad as Iverson.

[Mattsanity]

it's funny because if sixers won in 2001, a lot of revisionist hate towards iverson wouldn't exist.

[Bogg]

Philly was never beating that Lakers squad in a seven-game series. That's not one of those years where the title could have gone either way.

[Mattsanity]

Don't get it twisted, Wade is better. But did this amount of hate towards AI exist in 2001? I think not. it's pure revisionist crap.

[Najee]

It's either Dwayne Wade or Allen Iverson; it just depends on your style of player. I would take Wade, not necessarily because he was better than Iverson but because he was better teammate around whom to build a team.

[Bogg]

Originally Posted by Mattsanity

Don't get it twisted, Wade is better. But did this amount of hate towards AI exist in 2001? I think not. it's pure revisionist crap.

Never said opinion on him hasn't shifted in the last 10 years, but he was overrated at his peak and benefited from playing in what was clearly the weaker conference. Also, he did a lot as he was closing out his career to earn some of the "hate".

[Najee]

Originally Posted by Mattsanity

Don't get it twisted, Wade is better. But did this amount of hate towards AI exist in 2001? I think not. it's pure revisionist crap.

The reason the 2000-01 Philadelphia 76ers were constructed the way they were is because of Allen Iverson's playing style. Iverson may have been the most difficult top-level player around whom to build a team I've ever seen, because he required a lot of shots to be effective offensively. Moreover, players would have to buy in to the reality that one guy was not only going to take all the shots, but do it at a terribly low clip.

Moreover, by playing style and ego, other scorers suffered playing alongside Iverson earlier in his career in Philadelphia (see Jerry Stackhouse, Jimmy Jackson, etc). Iverson's tendency to dominate the ball in such an inefficient manner was part of the reason he was moved to shooting guard.

So in order for an offense to be build around Iverson, Philadelphia had to build a team based on role players who were not considered offensive-minded players. The players also had to cover up his shortcomings, such as being a small shooting guard in a point guard's body. Eric Snow's greatest value was being a tall point guard who could guard other team's shooting guards. Theo Ratliff's and Dikembe Mutombo's value was based on cleaning up behind Iverson when he gambled in the passing lanes. Aaron McKie's value was being an outside shooter when teams collapsed on Iverson.

Philadelphia couldn't build a conventional team around Iverson because he was an unconventional player, and a good portion of that was Iverson's ego and selfishness as well as his playing style. The only way Philly was going to work in the Iverson era was find NBA players who were not and could not be offensively minded players -- which is a tough sell, to say the least.