In the history of the Philadelphia 76ers, Allen Iverson is one of the best players in franchise history. His play on the court was absolutely incredible as he led the league in scoring four times while donning a Sixers uniform and he won an MVP award in 2001 while guiding the team to an NBA Finals appearance.
In that 2000-01 season, he averaged a league-leading 31.1 points, 4.6 assists, and a league-leading 2.5 steals while guiding the Sixers to a 56-26 record on the season before their playoff run. It was an unbelievable run for a guy of such small physical stature.
So, where does his MVP season rank among the 20 MVP winners since 2000? According to Bleacher Report, Iverson’s MVP season ranks as the worst.
B/R:
As you’d expect, Iverson’s counting stats look worse when adjusted to a per-minute perspective, and his 51.8 true shooting percentage is last by a mile among our 20 MVP seasons. The next-lowest was Kevin Garnett’s 2003-04 at 54.7 percent.
His sheer physical endurance was remarkable, and it’ll never be anything short of spectacular that a little guy (generously listed at 6’0″ and 165 pounds) thrived in a game for which size always matters. But efficiency is a major problem here, and it was always difficult to escape the thought that these Philly teams could have been more balanced and successful if Iverson weren’t completely commandeering the offense on every possession.
It’s hard to agree with the ranking. Iverson was on a Sixers team where he almost had to do all of the heavy lifting on offense. It was hard for him to completely show faith in a guy like Eric Snow who was not much of a threat offensively and then he had Dikembe Mutombo at center who’s main focus was to protect the rim and rebound. Sure, Aaron McKie was there, but he was not a big-time scorer in any sense.
The only real glaring “weakness” in his game was his lack of efficiency, sure, but that is because he really did not have a choice. Especially when going up and down that roster and seeing that the next best scorer was Mutombo at 11.7 points per game. [lawrence-related id=29612,29598,29591]