Fast Break: A Comparison Fair to Iverson For a Change

Now let's make a comparison that is fair to Iverson for a change. Here are the 2007-08 assist ratios for Iverson and for the other players who played his position, 2-guard (shooting guard):

Allen Iverson, DEN 21.4
Manu Ginobili, SAS 19.4
Kobe Bryant, LAL 16.2
Dwyane Wade, MIA 20.6
Kevin Martin, SAC 9.0
Brandon Roy, POR 22.6
Monta Ellis, GSW 16.6
Michael Redd, MIL 13.1
Vince Carter, NJN 19.0
Tracy McGrady, HOU 19.2
Jason Richardson, CHA 12.7
Ronnie Brewer, UTH 14.1
Richard Hamilton, DET 19.2
J.R. Smith, DEN 12.9
Mike Dunleavy, IND 16.3
Joe Johnson, ATL 20.1
Brent Barry, HOU 22.4
Ben Gordon, CHI 13.6
Ray Allen, BOS 15.6
Mike Miller, MIN 17.9
Jamal Crawford, NYK 18.5
Leandro Barbosa, PHO 14.9
Sasha Vujacic, LAL 11.1
Rashad McCants, MIN 12.0
Anthony Parker, TOR 15.9
C.J. Miles, UTH 15.6
John Salmons, SAC 16.1
Maurice Evans, ORL 11.5
Rodney Stuckey, DET 23.2
Luther Head, HOU 19.2
Carlos Delfino, TOR 15.8
Bobby Jackson, HOU 18.8
Kelenna Azubuike, GSW 9.6
Jerry Stackhouse, DAL 17.6
Kirk Snyder, MIN 18.6
Jarrett Jack, IND 25.7
Willie Green, PHI 12.6
DeShawn Stevenson, WAS 20.6
Rodney Carney, MIN 6.5
Delonte West, CLE 26.6
Larry Hughes, CHI 15.3
Juan Carlos Navarro, MEM 15.5
Nick Young, WAS 9.1
Marquis Daniels, IND 15.7
Cuttino Mobley, LAC 15.8
Thabo Sefolosha, CHI 18.7
Juan Dixon, DET 23.1
Damien Wilkins, OKC 15.4
Morris Peterson, NOR 10.1
Fred Jones, NYK 22.7
Charlie Bell, MIL 25.9
Keith Bogans, ORL 13.1
Matt Carroll, CHA 9.4
Tony Allen, BOS 16.5
Raja Bell, PHO 16.4
Arron Afflalo, DET 14.2
Kareem Rush, IND 12.1
Gordan Giricek, PHO 14.5
Antoine Wright, DAL 16.4
Yakhouba Diawara, DEN 18.4
Daequan Cook, MIA 11.1
Quinton Ross, LAC 18.4
Eddie Jones, DAL 24.3
Sasha Pavlovic, CLE 14.3
Greg Buckner, MEM 20.0
Mardy Collins, NYK 26.4
Bobby Jones, NYK 12.8

Dwyane Wade has stated that he does not want to play point guard, so that explains him. Iverson has never stated any such thing.

The obvious thing to see here is that Iverson was way ahead of most of the 2-guards in assisting!

The handful of 2-guards (shooting guards) who were ahead of Iverson in assisting are definitely all combo guards, and most likely a good number of them are playing the 2-guard only because that is best for their teams, either because their team does not have a better 2-guard, or because their team has a 1-guard (point guard) who is better than they are. In other words, I would bet that most of the other teams have good excuses for playing players who get a lot of assists at the 2-guard rather than the 1-guard.

But the Nuggets had no player who could play point guard better than Iverson, which it took them until the playoffs to realize! (Actually, I don't think they actually realized it even then laugh out loud.) And the Nuggets had one of the better 2-guards in the League ready to start if called on, J.R. Smith. So I hardly think that the Nuggets had any excuse other than stupidity. Or, maybe it was just Mr. Karl suffering from "J.R. Smith paranoia," which has been recently identified by basketball psychologists as an official clinical problem.

So to summarize and simplify, you had Iverson playing both guard positions at once, which ended up putting him a little above average among all 1-guards and 2-guards in assisting. Iverson was like the man without a position. He had too many assists to be a good 2-guard, and not as many assists as he could have had if he had been the 1-guard. He was like a character on the show "LOST".

As explained so often at Quest For the Ring, the correction for this was obvious: Iverson had to be the point guard all along if the Nuggets really wanted to contend.

As you can see above, Iverson while playing 2-guard, has way more of his possessions end in assists than most of the other 2-guards. Furthermore, while not responsible for the position, his assist ratio is only marginally less than the assist ratios of quality (but relatively modest assist ratio) point guards such as Tony Parker and Baron Davis.

Well, Iverson, Parker, and Davis share another obvious feature: they like to score and they can do so well. And there is no law or regulation against having a point guard who likes to take a good number of shots and to score a good number of points. The Hornets, with the high scoring PG Chris Paul, were probably the biggest surprise this past season, while Tony Parker has won several rings with the Spurs over the last several years.

There is simply no serious argument to be made that it is necessary or even just highly advisable to have a low scoring point guard rather than a high scoring point guard. There are certain athletes who can walk and chew gum at the same time and Iverson is obviously one of them. You can win with, if you know what you are doing, either a high scoring or with a very unselfish, moderate scoring point guard.

The number is important, the rank not as important. But for the record, Iverson was #57 out of 72 actual point guards in assisting, while being instructed to NOT in the least be the point guard by the twisted George Karl. Had he been instructed to be the point guard, his rank in terms of assisting would have been between #17 and #45. His rank among point guards in scoring would have been top 10, obviously. And then the rough approximation of Chris Paul, together with JR Smith at 2-guard, would have made the Nuggets about the best offense in the league, instead of only about 10th best, which in turn would have made them a real contender.
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Editorial Notes: A "Fast Break" is a short and quick preview of some of the topics that will be explored and proved in more detail in upcoming regular reports. Fast Breaks will often reappear in full reports with only minor reediting, but there will be more important details, more evidence, and more implications and explanations in the full reports. Moreover, there will be topics that never appear in any Fast Break in a full Report.

Fast Breaks are especially useful for the first few days after major news breaks. They are also very useful for people who will seldom or never have enough time to read a full Game/Team/League Report. Fast Breaks are the type of article that more typical web logs feature almost all or all of the time.