<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">When I sat down to watch the popular show 'Batman' when I was a kid, little did I know the influence it would have on how I picture life. Other than being one of the greatest television programs of all time (forget those dark, overrated movies, the tv show was the juice), it helped me develop my philosophy of sports and of life as well. The caped crusader always got the villain, but he always needed help from his trusty sidekick Robin to finalize the job. The metaphor I pulled out of my hours of enjoyment of seeing the Joker and Riddler taken down by the men in the Batmobile is that every great leader needs a trusted sidekick. No player in team sports wins by him or herself. How many NBA championships did Michael Jordan win without Scottie Pippen? As Ken Jennings would say on Jeopardy, 'what is zero'. How many did Larry Bird win without Kevin McHale? I'll say it for Ken this time, zip. Did Wayne Gretzky win a championship without Mark Messier? Nope. What about Shaq and Kobe? Although both thought they were Batman and the other was Robin, neither has won withouth the other. How many titles did John Elway win without Terrell Davis? Zero. With him? Two. How many were won in Boston by Roger Clemens without a Robin? Zero. By Pedro Martinez without one? Zero. Hello, Curt Schilling, hello parade. You can argue about who was Batman there, I will take Schilling in a heartbeat. The Batman and Robin theory works in business and in life as well, but we will stick to sports today. Shaq now has Dwyane Wade, Kobe has nobody. Who has the shot at a title? I won't wait for your answer here. The Sixers have a clear Batman in Allen Iverson. Incredible talent, incredible heart. Think of Allen what you will, but for nine years he has riddled the NBA with his unique style of play. AI takes incredible punishment, however, and needs help while he is there, and to step up when he is unable to go. For nine years, the Sixers have been looking for Robin, and their problem is that they have not found him. To continue my theory of life, I group athletes into three categories: Batman, Robin, and the rest are like Alfred The Butler at Stately Wayne Manor, they are workers. Jerry Stackhouse was supposed to be Robin. I called him Alfred, and so did you. Larry Hughes? Hello, Alfred, at least at that point of his young career. Tim Thomas? His nickname should have been Al. Keith Van Horn? Someone should have asked him to prepare tea instead of play in certain games. Glenn Robinson? If he was Robin in the television series, we would now all be living in Gotham City under the rule of Mr. Freeze or King Tut.</div> Full Story Who is Robin or should there even be a Robin? (Nicely written article btw. I?d suggest you Sixers fans to read it as well. ) Well anyways if you look at the 2nd paragraph of this article it pretty much shuts down Iverson chances of winning a championship as a "one-man team". However, Iverson was virtually always a one-man team. The year they went to the finals, there was really no real second option on the team. The team was pretty much a team, a deep team for that matter and when you looked at this "team", Iverson was like the only player that REALLY stood out. This season things are somewhat resembling the 00-01 season. Now while this year squad isn't nearly as good as the Finals team, we are pretty deep and similar to the 00-01 team. The main thing that made me draw compressions to both teams (00-01 and 04-05) was the depth factor. For example in almost every game we would have a random player step up and be the second option. Whether it was Mutumbo, Snow, McKie, Jones etc. there was no real legitimate second option. And this year the same applies, one game it's Korver the next it?s Green, Thomas, Iguodala etc. So you see how they are similar? Well my question is, should Billy King look to continue working on making this team a ?deep team? similar to the 00-01 team? Or should he just look give away some of our core young players in return for a major star in hopes that he would form a Kobe/Shaq type tandem with Iverson and bring the team back to the promise land. NOTE: There haven't been many teams, if not any that have ever won a championship with a superstar and a "deep team" surrounding him.
Of course we should trade away some of our mediocore level players for one all star caliber player. How many teams have won a championship with a six foot player with no consistent second option. Even though we had a great 00-01 season with depth, we didn't win the championship. We were so great becasue of our amazing defense from those "mediocore" tough-nosed guys(Snow,Lynch,Hill). Right now we don't have that, altohugh they have the chance to be in the future.
Haha I always liked this Jolovitz guy articles, good sense of humor. Anyway he explains well about the 2nd hand man can really hype a players profile. I liked how he pointed out things like "How many rings did MJ win without Pippen? Zero. How many championships did Boston win by Rodger Clemens without a Robin? Zip." I remember watching one of the Sixer games when Steve Mix said that A.I. has a second man, Kyle Korver. Korver is a pure shooter but he`s not consistent like other superstar-second hand man pairs are such as the Shaq-Kobe duo or Parker-Duncan. I also agree what Jolovitz said about in the near future Iguodala being a strong "Robin". To answer your question Avery, I really think King should work on bringing in some young raw talent for the future and in the meantime they keep learning. From what we have seen in the past, star players to accompany Iverson have never really worked out that well.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">To answer your question Avery, I really think King should work on bringing in some young raw talent for the future and in the meantime they keep learning. From what we have seen in the past, star players to accompany Iverson have never really worked out that well.</div> Bring even more young talent? Majority of our best players are young and by the time they develop to the point in which they can be titled as a strong supporting cast, Iverson will be somewhat washed up by then. And yet to bring even more youth, and than wait for them to develop, Iverson may be as good as retired. So I doubt that would be the best thing to do. But that's just what I think, but do you really believe that would be the best option? But at the same time, I agree with you as in a strong supporting cast is indeed the way to go, but just not a young one. History has shown that Iverson doesn't mesh well with a second string on the team; however the only second string that I believe he would be able to play with is a big men. Quite frankly, the only real players than I can see Iverson playing/meshing well with as a one-two punch is either Duncan or Shaq. Iverson isn't really the type of player that can play with a finesse G/F that's at the same level or better than him. He needs a big dominant big man in the post that he can just lob the ball too. Notice how well he played with Duncan in the Olympics. And to be honest, if it was Iverson that was matched with Shaq instead of Kobe, I honestly believe they could have won more rings than Kobe and Shaq did. But being matched with Duncan/Shaq is pretty much impossible right now, so crafting a strong supporting cast is the best (and only) way to go, I believe.
Nice find Avery very interesting article <div class="quote_poster">Quoting Avery:</div><div class="quote_post"> NOTE: There haven't been many teams, if not any that have ever won a championship with a superstar and a "deep team" surrounding him.</div> Well the 2003 Spurs team that won I consider Tim Duncan the Superstar and the supproting cast he had depth. There really wasn't a second all-star there at that time but now u could argue Tony Parker is but not then. That team was great. Lol I must say though that's the only team that comes to mind. On our Finals run we had a great supporting cast beside Iverson. We had defensive beast in Dikembe Mutombo(defensive player of the year), George Lynch, and Tyrone Hill. A 6th man in Aaron McKie. A great PG in Eric Snow. We had a great and inspiring team. However the 2 superstars of Kobe and Shaq destroyed it all. I really thought we had it that year. I think right now we should get a player on our team that can score 20 points on a given night. Andre Igoudala, Wille Green, Kenny THomas can all score 20 points but not as consistintly as We need it to be. I think we should try a deal with Ron Artest this off-season. Ron artest isn't really on Indianas list as theri favortie players and this off-season might be a good time to trade for him. Ron Artest can dominate games offensively and especially defensively. Even though this guy is trouble I think he would be really good. I don't know who we would give up though. I'd have to think about it more proabably
