Allen Iverson Wants Real Minutes, Dammit
1-liner, NBA April 1st. 2009, 11:30amAllen Iverson: “How many minutes did I play? It seemed way, way, way less than that. Eighteen minutes? Come on, man. I can play 18 minutes with my eyes closed and with a 100-pound truck on my back. It’s a bad feeling, man. I’m wondering what they rushed me back for? For that?” Iverson’s been one of our players forever – which is why we agree with this – but we’re curious how he addresses this: “He left the team Feb. 26. Hardly anybody saw him again until last week. He didn’t do one single basketball-related exercise for a month. So he comes back, clearly rusty, clearly not in game shape, and he complains about playing 18 minutes on the front end of a back-to-back.” (Detroit News)
28 Responses to “Allen Iverson Wants Real Minutes, Dammit”
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April 1st, 2009 at 11:41 am
let’s just totally disregard what giving him 35 mins of playing time did to the team before his back injury.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:43 am
Allen Iverson is still The Answer
…but his play is raising a lot of questions
April 1st, 2009 at 11:45 am
The Answer!
April 1st, 2009 at 11:48 am
The Pistons doing what the Pistons do. Whether it was Flip Saunders or now Iverson; they’re always looking for someone to throw under the bus.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:49 am
He should retire now.
Iverson could only play well when he was The Man. He is clearly not able to continue in that role.
He will not be happy to be anything but The Man.
He will be a distraction to any team he is on unless he is The Man. He is certainly not a guy to put team first. It’s always been about AI, The Man.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:50 am
throwing him under the bus? they tried to let him play the way he was used to when he got there, and his 7-21 shooting was killing them.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:56 am
They tried to fit everything around Rodney Stuckey as if he’s a star in the making, and it has failed. They have placed everyone but Rodney Stuckey on the bench. The coaching is horrible and the play-calling is erratic.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:58 am
Myth and reality. He wasn’t “the man” in Denver and had one of his best seasons last year.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Myth: Iverson is good.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:01 pm
when Iverson got hurt, and prior to Sheed and Rips injuries, that is when the Pistons played their best ball.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:03 pm
How’d the Nuggets do last year? Why did they trade him for Billups this year? He is a ME first guy. Always has been.
The “practice? you talkin’ ’bout practice?” thing has been overdone, but the point is crystal clear. AI doesn’t need practice because it’s about AI, not about the team. He should WANT to practice with his teammates to make the TEAM better.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:14 pm
A.I. can do no wrong. Detroit can eat it.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:15 pm
They’re about the same in reality. They have just as good of a shot of getting knocked out of the first round with 50 wins this year.
“talkin about practice” was the press conference the day or so after Philly was knocked out of the playoffs by Boston and all of a sudden Larry Brown had an issue with practice. It was about “why are we talking about practice NOW”
April 1st, 2009 at 12:26 pm
The Pistons played their best ball in December/January when Hamilton and Iverson started, and Stuckey came off the bench.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:32 pm
i think you are confusing that with the 7 game win streak when they went with 3 starting guards, and then Rip got hurt.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Iverson is a relic of the 90s “me-first” one on one style of basketball that was rampant in the Eastern Conference. It never won any titles, and it never lasted when good team basketball came back around.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:54 pm
The Pistons team and organization did not do anything negative to AI. This is a column by previously bashed Detroit News columnist Chris McCoskey. It is his observations and opinions. He is entitled to them, but do not confuse them with the organization.
I do not like his complaining about the game last night. He was in the game at the end when they blew a lead and lost the game, couldn’t score a basket and couldn’t stop LeBron. The results are the same for this team this year regardless of who is on the floor. But still….all that matters is what happens in the playoffs.
April 1st, 2009 at 1:16 pm
“100 pound truck?” Is that one of those jobbies from India that look like a roller skate? Where does one find a 100-pound truck, much less put it on one’s back?
/Still love AI
April 1st, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Pistons fan here.
I’ve given A.I. the benefit of the doubt for most of the season, but when he went down, I was actually happy. Not because he was hurt but because he was out of the lineup. Detroit was clearly not playing team ball and roles were confusing when A.I. was in the lineup. He went out, they understood roles. But Sheed and Rip got hurt and it got bad.
I’m looking forward to A.I. and his contract getting out of Detroit after this season. The Pistons will be much better served spending 15-20 million on someone or two guys who can contribute better on the floor to the organization.
April 1st, 2009 at 1:51 pm
If roles are confused, that isn’t the player’s fault, it’s the coach’s.
April 1st, 2009 at 1:56 pm
The 90’s was about physical, bump and grind defense. As a matter of fact, for most of the history of the League before the 90’s teams didn’t even play help defense. The defenses in the league in the 90’s was so good, Stern had to go out and change the rules in order to generate more offense. If you had a player who could score 1 on 1 it was a benefit. It had nothing to do with being “me first”.
April 1st, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Too bad Iverson wasn’t very good at it himself, as his 52% career true shooting % would attest.
He could take shots with the best of them. Making them was a challenge.
April 1st, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Who leads the League in this true shooting % ?
April 1st, 2009 at 2:15 pm
The didn’t change the rules. The officials started calling it BY the rules. Thanks to Chuck Daly for changing basketball into some form of wrestling with a ball and a hoop.
April 1st, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Post guys have the highest true shooting percentages. So to be fair, just compare him to other SGs. He’s not even in the top 20.
April 1st, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Hand checking was modified with the you couldn’t hand check with an extended arm rule (Derek Harper rule), then it was eliminated altogther. You can play a zone but you are still called for 3 seconds in the paint, so what does that do; open up the lanes. But you say there haven’t been rule changes? OK.
April 1st, 2009 at 2:39 pm
I don’t know enough about that stat to argue against it, but I do know that no one scores over 20,000 points in the NBA just because they shoot too much.
April 1st, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Darrell -
No one said he wasn’t incredibly talented. AI never harnessed that talent into more than being a shoot first guy that must have the ball in his hands to be sucessful. Thus, 20,000 points came as a byproduct of his talent and his shoot mentality. But, he was and still is a chucker as his terrible FG% shows.
He wasn’t ever going to fit in with Detroit, who played great team basketball for several years before Dumars tore it up (for right or wrong). Detroit took him to take his contract and send him on his merry way next year, period.
Send him to Golden State where it’s all about the individual. He will chuck it with the rest of the Warriors and put up some decent numbers and be happy because he would be The Man. That’s the only way he’ll be happy now.