Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas says Allen Iverson was toughest to defend

Former Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas says Allen Iverson was the toughest guy for him to defend.

Philadelphia 76ers franchise icon Allen Iverson definitely gave everybody a scare when he stepped on to the floor. He would give his opponents nightmares every time he laced up his sneakers.

So, it’s no surprise that he gets mentioned when former players get asked who the toughest guy to defend was.

Former Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas–who was no slouch himself–had no hesitation when asked who was the toughest player to defend for him: Iverson.

Arenas said:

He only weighed about 160 at best. He was little. So all that weight room and the strength and conditioning we did would not work on him. Because as soon as you hit him, and he’s moving, he’s flying so you’re automatically catching that that foul…what made Allen hard to guard was, you know that one white boy on every team? That has no talent, but goes balls out all day like to go run to the scoreboard, he’s gonna be breathing and sweating on you and all that. Like you the star and coach puts him on you to try to shut…that was his mentality, but as a star. So he just you know he gonna dive in his thing like he just never stopped. He was like he was trying to score 60, every game. So you know when you got a mentality like that who’s just going to be…you just, you had to go to sleep early like ‘man I don’t, I really don’t want to guard this dude all goddamn game’. You know, because he had the ultra, ultra, ultra green.

Iverson was a guy that was feared the moment he stepped on the court. He had the respect of his peers and due to his offensive skills, he could do it all out on the floor and he could not be stopped. Even though a guy like Arenas could probably match up with him bucket-for-bucket, it would still be tough for a guy like him to really beat Iverson. [lawrence-related id=32949,32940,32933]