All major basketball fans know that Allen Iverson was a shooting guard for Larry Brown in Philadelphia. But what was he in the years that Brown was not the coach? AI played 3 1/3 years for Philly after Brown was gone, under 4 different coaches. Also, his rookie year, 1996-97, was before Brown was the coach: 76'ers History Was AI the PG or the SG during any of these 4 1/3 years? If so, about how many years did he start at PG? If anyone knows, I thank you in advance for the valuable info.
From Wikipedia: "Despite these criticisms, Iverson is still generally regarded as one of the best guards to ever play the game, as evidenced by his being named the starting point guard for the Eastern Conference in the NBA All-Star Game for the past seven consecutive seasons. He was voted to seven All-NBA Teams. He also took the league and All-Star MVP and led the Sixers to the Finals in 2001." Source So he was the PG in the all-star games, but what was he in the non-Larry Brown 76'ers years?
If I'm not mistaken, Iverson came out of college and played PG for the Sixers. When Larry Brown came to town, he moved AI to SG, and after he left, I think Iverson played a season of PG/SG. After that, they moved him back to PG full time. He probably started at PG for the ASG because of his height and skill. I mean, the other East guard was Carter, and AI's probably a better PG than he is. This happened in the West one year where Kobe and Tmac were voted in as the guards, and Kobe had to start at PG.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Base @ Mar 18 2008, 05:57 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>If I'm not mistaken, Iverson came out of college and played PG for the Sixers. When Larry Brown came to town, he moved AI to SG, and after he left, I think Iverson played a season of PG/SG. After that, they moved him back to PG full time. He probably started at PG for the ASG because of his height and skill. I mean, the other East guard was Carter, and AI's probably a better PG than he is. This happened in the West one year where Kobe and Tmac were voted in as the guards, and Kobe had to start at PG.</div> THANK YOU VERY MUCH. You have helped me with one of my biggest discoveries of the year, probably the biggest. This is huge, because this proves that AI at the 2-guard is a Larry Brown-George Karl thing and that's about it. George Karl refuses to do what the majority of other coaches have done, which is start AI at PG. Since it is well known that Brown and Karl are close friends and associates, it would be nearly impossible for Karl to play AI at PG, because this would go against one of his best friends and his mentor. AI at the 2-guard, but playing PG to one extent or another at the same time, is a huge reason why the Nuggets' offense has been incomprehensible, probably the #1 reason. And this is why it is so easy for good defensive teams to partly or totally shut down the Nuggets' offense. And the offensive inconsistency is the number one reason why the Nuggets are in 9th in the West right now instead of in the top 4. So this will be the #1 reason why the Nuggets miss the playoffs if they do miss the playoffs, or the #1 reason why they lose in the playoffs quickly. Thanks again.
No problem. During his tenure with the Knicks, Larry Brown also wanted to put Marbury in the same situation, meaning throwing him in as the 2 guard. I don't think he ever implemented the plan though.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tremaine @ Mar 18 2008, 07:23 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>THANK YOU VERY MUCH. You have helped me with one of my biggest discoveries of the year, probably the biggest. This is huge, because this proves that AI at the 2-guard is a Larry Brown-George Karl thing and that's about it. George Karl refuses to do what the majority of other coaches have done, which is start AI at PG. Since it is well known that Brown and Karl are close friends and associates, it would be nearly impossible for Karl to play AI at PG, because this would go against one of his best friends and his mentor.</div> That is an absolutely asinine statement and an assault on logic and common sense
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Base @ Mar 18 2008, 08:16 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>No problem. During his tenure with the Knicks, Larry Brown also wanted to put Marbury in the same situation, meaning throwing him in as the 2 guard. I don't think he ever implemented the plan though.</div> No, larry the clown just wanted Marbury off the team.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tremaine @ Mar 18 2008, 06:23 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>THANK YOU VERY MUCH. You have helped me with one of my biggest discoveries of the year, probably the biggest. This is huge, because this proves that AI at the 2-guard is a Larry Brown-George Karl thing and that's about it. George Karl refuses to do what the majority of other coaches have done, which is start AI at PG. Since it is well known that Brown and Karl are close friends and associates, it would be nearly impossible for Karl to play AI at PG, because this would go against one of his best friends and his mentor. AI at the 2-guard, but playing PG to one extent or another at the same time, is a huge reason why the Nuggets' offense has been incomprehensible, probably the #1 reason. And this is why it is so easy for good defensive teams to partly or totally shut down the Nuggets' offense. And the offensive inconsistency is the number one reason why the Nuggets are in 9th in the West right now instead of in the top 4. So this will be the #1 reason why the Nuggets miss the playoffs if they do miss the playoffs, or the #1 reason why they lose in the playoffs quickly. Thanks again.</div> None of that makes any sense whatsoever.. You can't use a 15 year-old's logic and expect it to apply to real life. 1. You can't manufacture "trends" from thin air. Iverson entered the league as a PG because he was playing with Jerry Stackhouse, who was a 20 ppg scorer his rookie year. AI's position pretty much his entire career is defined by the personnel around him more than anything, and which spot he plays matters little to his team's success. 2. Karl and Brown have just about...nothing...in common in terms of their coaching style. Karl is known for being uptempo and offensive minded, while Brown is known for an extreme defensive mindset. A large percentage of current coaches in the NBA have served under one another as assistants at one point in their long careers, but anyone above the age of 12 will tell you that there is no way any NBA-level coach would pass up a winning strategy so as not to "go against" his mentor's previous coaching approach. 3. He was coached by Johnny Davis his rookie year and their team went 22-60 on the season. Ayers and Ford combined to coach Philly to a 33-49 record in 2004-05. Cheeks (who Iverson begged to get for YEARS) got them to a 38-44 record before a disgruntled Iverson got traded. Lots of success with those "other" coaches huh? 4. The Nuggets last year went 45-37 (6th in the west) on the season. This year they are at 40 wins with over 15 games left to play.. Which puts them on pace to win more than last year. Losing Nene at the beginning of the year, integrating Kenyon Martin, super competitive West, underachieving bench, lack of significant roster improvements, opponents adapting to the Iverson trade, etc etc are all better reasons than your "logic." Enjoy your new 'biggest discovery' ;[ ugh
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tradebark @ Mar 19 2008, 05:01 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tremaine @ Mar 18 2008, 06:23 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>THANK YOU VERY MUCH. You have helped me with one of my biggest discoveries of the year, probably the biggest. This is huge, because this proves that AI at the 2-guard is a Larry Brown-George Karl thing and that's about it. George Karl refuses to do what the majority of other coaches have done, which is start AI at PG. Since it is well known that Brown and Karl are close friends and associates, it would be nearly impossible for Karl to play AI at PG, because this would go against one of his best friends and his mentor. AI at the 2-guard, but playing PG to one extent or another at the same time, is a huge reason why the Nuggets' offense has been incomprehensible, probably the #1 reason. And this is why it is so easy for good defensive teams to partly or totally shut down the Nuggets' offense. And the offensive inconsistency is the number one reason why the Nuggets are in 9th in the West right now instead of in the top 4. So this will be the #1 reason why the Nuggets miss the playoffs if they do miss the playoffs, or the #1 reason why they lose in the playoffs quickly. Thanks again.</div> None of that makes any sense whatsoever.. You can't use a 15 year-old's logic and expect it to apply to real life. 1. You can't manufacture "trends" from thin air. Iverson entered the league as a PG because he was playing with Jerry Stackhouse, who was a 20 ppg scorer his rookie year. AI's position pretty much his entire career is defined by the personnel around him more than anything, and which spot he plays matters little to his team's success. 2. Karl and Brown have just about...nothing...in common in terms of their coaching style. Karl is known for being uptempo and offensive minded, while Brown is known for an extreme defensive mindset. A large percentage of current coaches in the NBA have served under one another as assistants at one point in their long careers, but anyone above the age of 12 will tell you that there is no way any NBA-level coach would pass up a winning strategy so as not to "go against" his mentor's previous coaching approach. 3. He was coached by Johnny Davis his rookie year and their team went 22-60 on the season. Ayers and Ford combined to coach Philly to a 33-49 record in 2004-05. Cheeks (who Iverson begged to get for YEARS) got them to a 38-44 record before a disgruntled Iverson got traded. Lots of success with those "other" coaches huh? 4. The Nuggets last year went 45-37 (6th in the west) on the season. This year they are at 40 wins with over 15 games left to play.. Which puts them on pace to win more than last year. Losing Nene at the beginning of the year, integrating Kenyon Martin, super competitive West, underachieving bench, lack of significant roster improvements, opponents adapting to the Iverson trade, etc etc are all better reasons than your "logic." Enjoy your new 'biggest discovery' ;[ ugh </div> "You can't use a 15 year-old's logic and expect it to apply to real life" is an ad hominen attack. When you get one of those, you know you are on the right track. 1. Those who disagree with me are now in two contradictory camps. One camp says that AI can't play the PG positon well, that he is a SG in a PG's body, and so forth. The other camp, the one you described, says that AI can play both positons and what matters is who the SG would be if AI is at PG or who the PG would be if AI is at SG. Which is it? I recommend that the other side get organized, because your side looks kind of weak when you have contradictory reasons flying around. 2. The styles of Brown and Karl don't matter to this controversy. And I'm not "anyone." I probably spend more time determining why the Nuggets win and why they lose than anyone, and I have reached the point where I can easily explain every loss and every win. I'm obviously not saying that Karl has followed Brown's wrong choice for Iverson knowing in advance it will fail, because obviously no one can know for sure in advance whether a strategy will succeed or fail. I am saying that it is a known fact that Brown was a mentor to Karl, and that it is rare for anyone to go on a completely different track from their mentor, on one of the most important decisions that mentor ever made. I am also saying that it is a well known fact that Karl detests the personality and style of J.R. Smith, and that most of his decisions regarding the guards of the Denver Nuggets have the common denominator result of keeping Smith on the bench more rather than less. The fact that their chosen strategy has failed means that the probability that I am right and that they are wrong has shot up to a very high percentage, which means, like it or not, I have to complete this investigation and report. 3. I'm not through studying the Philly record, but that is a relatively minor issue, because my side and half of your side agrees that Iverson can play either position well. The reason this is important for the Nuggets is because the Nuggets would not be in the mess they are in if they had 5-6 more wins and, if I'm right, as seems increasinly obvious, the Nuggets would have those wins and maybe more. 4. Nene: any good coaching staff should be able to handle the loss of 1 player at Nene's level, so if you think I am going to say "Well, we would have made the playoffs if Nene played" and be done with it, sorry, I'm not going there. In point of fact, in any event, you don't see me saying the staff mishandled the loss of Nene. But they did screw up the loss of Atkins, and it looks like they are going to screw up the return of Atkins. Kenyon Martin was integrated easily and quickly thanks to sports medicine and thanks to Nene not being available. The Nuggets may have lost 1-2 games due to that. One of my jobs is to determine why the Nuggets are not fully competive with the "ultracompetitive West." If you want to say everything would be fine if Denver was in the East, fine, go ahead and say it. I won't be impressed with that. The Nuggets are one of the best 6 teams in the NBA; they should be between 3rd and 5th in the West at a minimum. Anything less than that and they have no chance in the playoffs, so what is the point? The Nuggets do not have an underachieving bench, they have coaches who overestimate the differences between starters and non-starters, and who are among the stingiest in the NBA in the amount of playing time given to non-starters. Obviously, the bench is going to be underachieving to some extent if their playing times are less than the playing times of non-starters on other teams. That is precisely the point I have been making for many moons. Lack of significant roster improvements? Ha ha, they need to improve more than they already have, with no money left to do that? Try another reason. "Opponents adapting to the Iverson trade"? Careful, you are very close to making an argument in favor of AI at PG, because keying in on Iverson all the time won't work as well if Iverson is at least as responsible for passing and assists as he is for scoring. I am afraid that I have stumbled on something that is bigger than I ever thought it would be. In every controversy like this, some people are going to get upset, because assumptions they have had for years and years are being questioned. Anyone who wants to stay believing that AI's career could not have worked out better had Larry Brown not removed him from the position that the majority of coaches thought he should play is welcome to do so. Many on the Iverson can't play the PG side are going to be folks who don't really give a damn whether Iverson ever makes it to the NBA finals again or not. Anyone who does care would be more open to the possiblity that Brown and Karl have been wrong, because it never worked out their way except in that one wonder year when Iverson was by far the best guard on the planet. Do you continue on with the same strategy when it fails year after year after year? Well if you don't give a damn about Iverson, sure you do. You don't have to explain the failure of the Nuggets, but I do, and I will.
Keep knocking down those straw men, buddy. You basically strike me as a disgruntled Nuggets fan who is looking to blame their current standing on Karl (which may very well be deserved)..... for the complete wrong reason. Given your status as a fan/team voyeur.. Specifically as a NON-insider, any sort of speculation on why this or that coach chooses to play a player a certain way is just that--painfully misguided speculation. Beyond that, you again assume that it makes any sort of difference to have Iverson labeled as a PG as opposed to an SG.. Regardless of the fact that many a Nuggets possession consists mostly of the ball being in his hands, despite Atkins or Boykins or whoever having initially brought the ball up the court. And to further compound it, you're trying to use some botched version of empirical evidence by suggesting that "most coaches" would use Iverson as a point.. And cite your "biggest discovery" (this is in and of itself the reason for you being ridiculed, btw) as having his rookie-year coach play him at the point all the way to a last-place finish in a horrible division. Bear in mind that Iverson's current status as a future hall of famer is built around his success under Brown's tenure and NO ONE else's.. And that Iverson has enjoyed the most success both on the individual and team levels playing for the two coaches you feel mishandled him. Iverson's one playoff appearance without either coach was with Larry O'Brien, who he pushed to fire after their playoff run was cut short in the opening round. It amuses me to no end that you go out and try to ridicule my so-called reasons for the Nuggets' shortcomings, when any of those are much more substantive than labeling Iverson as an SG rather than trying to label him as a PG. Honestly, how old are you and what level of education have you achieved? It boggles my mind how your imagination leads you to believe that Karl would refuse to play Iverson at PG simply because Brown didn't do so.
