Ranking the 75 best players in NBA history for 75th anniversary

Ranking the 75 best players in NBA history: No. 44 – Allen Iverson

Career: 1996 – 2010

Achievements: 2001 MVP; All-NBA (7x); All-Star (11x); four-time scoring leader; three-time steals leader; 15th in career steals; 30th in career points (total); seventh in career points (per game)

Many reading this list will be shocked to find Allen Iverson this far down. He won an MVP, led the league in scoring four different times and was the face of a cultural revolution where basketball fans began to explore new ways to express themselves in both manner and dress.

Iverson’s impact on society and on basketball culture is undeniable, and there is no question he was a truly gifted scorer. Iverson’s ability to create a shot out of nothing allowed the Philadelphia 76ers to surround him with elite defenders who didn’t provide much on offense. They handed AI the keys and he drove them all the way to the NBA Finals.

The problem is that when you peel back the layers of his actual statistics you see how inefficient he truly was. Iverson scored as much as he did because of his insane volume, both in field goal attempts and minutes played. He averaged at least 40 minutes per game 11 times, leading the league in that number seven times. Since Iverson came into the league no player has done so more than five times. He ranks fourth in NBA history in minutes per game at 41.1 for his career.

Iverson’s career field goal percentage is just 42.5 percent, and he didn’t do as much to make his offenses better as you would think. He was the ultimate floor raiser, but his inability to raise a team’s offensive ceiling, or scale into a more efficient role, hindered his teams from being great.