Allen Iverson is one of the greatest players to ever play the game, supported by his many envied achievements accomplished over his career: NBA Rookie of the Year (1997), NBA MVP (2001), 10 time NBA All-Star, 3 time NBA steels leader (2001-2003), and 4 time NBA scoring champion (1999, 2001, 2002, 2005), and others. Yet over the years, Iverson's performance has declined with every new team that he has gone to. Is his decline in performance due to the fact that he is aging, at 34 years of age? Or is it because of the way that the recent teams he has been on are using him?
Iverson spent the first decade of his career on the Philadelphia 76ers, where he was most productive averaging as much as 33.0 PPG and it is also where he got the most playing time, as he moved on to the Denver Nuggets his amount of playing time decreased by about a minute and his productivity was about the same as it was. It was when Iverson was traded to the Detroit Pistons for Chauncy Billups is when his productivity declined by almost 10 PPG, and his minutes declined as well. It is the way that teams are using Iverson that is causing him to preform less, because he is given less time to shine.
During a long summer of being a free-agent no one signed Iverson until finally signed by the Memphis Grizzlies u. Now with the Grizzlies he is being used the least that he ever was with minutes that have declined by more then 10 minutes. Not only has his minutes declined but he is no longer even a starter. A player like Allen Iverson, a player that has the capability of leading a team to the playoffs, for Memphis to make him come off the bench it a insult of his talent. Teams have been seeing his abilities on the court for 13 years, one would think that the Grizzlies would realize that, but apparently they have yet to do so. Iverson said, "I'm not trying to figure out how to contribute to no team, I contribute to a team by just playing. That's it."(sports.yahoo.com). He's right, the Grizzlies aren't going to get anything out him by him sitting on the bench, and this is something they have to realize. The Memphis Grizzlies will not improve their season at all by having a player of Iverson's stature, capability, and basketball I.Q. coming off the bench.
(image courtesy of sports.yahoo.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment