Reply With Quote
He still made it to the Finals one time, when Jordan couldn't do that until Grant and Pippen came along... still, I think you need multiple parts in order to win a le... hence, the term "team"
December 13, 2006
The Synthetic Jordan Era Has Lost Its Air
By HARVEY ARATON
The anticipated trading of Allen Iverson by the Philadelphia 76ers will mark an unofficial end to a dubious period of professional basketball. Call it the Synthetic Jordan Era, when young, emerging stars had a sole shoe company-driven agenda to be like Mike.
Except it was less about the core values on which six Bulls championships were built across the 1990s and more about the trappings of personal transcendence, that existential place where a team, above all, is a platform for its premier celebrity pitchman.
It turns out that a penthouse in Philadelphia is an unfulfilling perk, a lonely palace, and after 10-plus years, 16,253 shots and 19,583 points, playoffs excluded, Iverson has apparently decided he can’t take it anymore.
With his 76ers locker already cleaned out of do-rags and flat-brim caps, he will be happy to hook up with, among others, Kevin Garnett in Minnesota or Paul Pierce in Boston. Times have changed. LeBron James aims to share and Dwyane Wade’s championship love-in with Shaquille O’Neal last season was 1960s old school. While dodging trade specifics before coaching the Celtics to a 97-90 victory over the Knicks on Monday night at Madison Square Garden, Doc Rivers said he understood why Iverson, the so-called Answer, would suddenly demand to go someplace where he would have to shoulder only half the questions.
“The pressure of carrying your team is unbearable,” Rivers said. “And no single player has done it successfully.”
No single one? Here we run smack into that double-edged Jordan legacy on which the young swashbucklers of the mid-to-late 1990s couldn’t help but impale themselves.
They were unwitting byproducts of the most prolific promotional campaign the sports industry had seen, a blitz so consuming that we didn’t think twice about shrinking Jordan’s teammates into his supporting cast, his elfish Jordanaires.
Forgotten was the fact that Jordan barely scratched the postseason surface before Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant came along. Ignored was the startling sum of 55 victories ac ulated by the Bulls when Jordan first took leave of the sport on the eve of the 1993-94 season, an achievement unmatched by any N.B.A. team in its post-franchise-player incarnation.
What am I saying? Certainly not that Pippen was Jordan’s equal, but that his contributions and Hall of Fame credentials and those of others were often minimized by the Nike-inspired and league-abetted sell. Players who earned what has come to be known as max money under the salary cap became more warlord than leader in the post-Jordan years. Skewed were the standards of s om. The concept of multiple great players or even two sharing the ball and the attention, coexisting in pursuit of a common cause, was largely lost on the new breed.
•
“I think every player grows up wanting to be the star,” Rivers said. “But at the end of the day, you hope that winning shines brighter in their minds.”
That, unfortunately, wasn’t the case when Alonzo Mourning divorced Larry Johnson in Charlotte; when Stephon Marbury set out on a search for the inner Starbury because he couldn’t stomach being second in salary to Garnett in Minnesota; when Philadelphia wasn’t big enough for Iverson and the young Jerry Stackhouse; when Tracy McGrady refused to play Pippen to Vince Carter’s Jordan in Toronto and subsequently suffered through nightmarish losing seasons while playing part of that time for Rivers in Orlando.
On and on it went, into the 21st century when Kobe Bryant had to prove his manhood sans Shaq in Los Angeles, the high-end talent spreading thinner and the basketball public turning increasingly contemptuous of players it perceived as overhyped and underachieving. They were far from faultless, but as always in this sport, the players were the most convenient targets, as opposed to industry forces that produced them. How would Larry Bird and Magic Johnson have been perceived if they’d come along 15 years later and wound up on desultory teams in Toronto and Orlando?
“People get mad at me in Boston when I talk about Larry, but great as he was, and Larry was great, how would he have done if he didn’t have Hall of Fame players around him — not one, when he won his first championship, not two, but three,” Cedric Maxwell, the former Celtic, now analyzing games on Boston-area radio, said Monday night.
In no particular order, he meant Robert Parish, Kevin McHale and Tiny Archibald, the Iverson of his day until Achilles’ surgery and the Celtics’ selfless system forced him to adapt his explosive small-guard skills.
In Maxwell’s typically direct opinion, the ghost of Red Auerbach will not haunt the Celtics if they land the shot-happy Iverson, as long as they don’t surrender too much of their future. As a synthetic Jordan, at least Iverson has been uniquely talented, a gritty little crowd-pleaser who carried the 76ers past a weak Eastern Conference into the 2001 league finals.
•
It’s one thing to be a Jordan wannabe, another to be an Iverson knockoff. The Knicks have managed to wind up with two, Marbury and Steve Francis (who laughably answers to the nickname Franchise), both struggling now to fit in as playmakers after years of bullheaded rushes to the rim or passes from compromised airborne positions.
Tattoos, warts and all, Iverson can make a strong case that he has been the Philadelphia franchise for a decade, no insignificant contribution to that city, but, upon further review, not exactly a ringing endorsement for the sport at large.
E-mail: [email protected]
He still made it to the Finals one time, when Jordan couldn't do that until Grant and Pippen came along... still, I think you need multiple parts in order to win a le... hence, the term "team"
"He still made it to the Finals one time"
and he made it all by himself. He lost to the Lakers playing 1-on-4.
Iverson is one of the greatest ISO players ever, but he never learned to play within the team. Jordan did. Pippen brought the ball up most of the time on offense when a point gaurd wasn't on the floor, and Jordan adapted to playing more without the ball.
Iverson has never done that, and at this point probably never will.
I will never understand this arguement against Iverson. When did he ever have a good team to play with?! Even when the Sixers went to the Finals in 2001....who was the second best player on that team? Aaron McKie?! Gimme a break. Look at all the other so called superstars who have made it to the Finals and won, Kobe + Shaq, Duncan +Drob, Wade+Shaq, Jordan+Pippen. AI had frickin McKie as the second leading scorer in the 2001 NBA Finals.
Aside from that, the past 5 seasons, he's had crap players around him. While Igodala is probably the best of the lot, he is still very young and not consistent enough. Who else did AI have on his "Team?" Kevin Ollie? Limping Chris Webber? John Salmons as backup?
Iverson hates losing and whenever he plays he tends to go crazy and play with enthusiam. Problem is, Sixers management didn't do a good job of matching the right people around him who complement this. AI isn't without his faults, he has a tendency to be a stubborn and selfish and all that. But the Sixers losing these past 5 or 6 seasons has as much to do with poor Sixers management, if not more, than it does with AI himself. But everyone keeps saying AI is selfish, not a team player, etc. as the reasons why he needs to be traded.
Actually, I think the "me first, team second" philosophy is still very alive in a lot of players.
You can keep singing A.I's praises, and acting as if he got the sixers to the finals himself, but we've already gone through this.
A team will not win anything with the offense running through Iverson unless he is surrounded by players who only play defense.
He will not win a ring unless he learns to play second, or third fiddle to someone else,
and he's too stubborn to do that. He has no work ethic, and his teams could have been better if he would have put a bit more time in to practicing with them. Practice isn't just about honing your own skills. Do you think Jordan skipped out of practice as much as AI?
I still see that in LeBron
Except LeBron makes everyone in his radius better.
Hmmmmmmmmmm.... still has yet to prove that to me...
I will never understand this arguement against Iverson. When did he ever have a good team to play with?! Even when the Sixers went to the Finals in 2001....who was the second best player on that team? Aaron McKie?! Gimme a break. Look at all the other so called superstars who have made it to the Finals and won, Kobe + Shaq, Duncan +Drob, Wade+Shaq, Jordan+Pippen. AI had frickin McKie as the second leading scorer in the 2001 NBA Finals.
Aside from that, the past 5 seasons, he's had crap players around him. While Igodala is probably the best of the lot, he is still very young and not consistent enough. Who else did AI have on his "Team?" Kevin Ollie? Limping Chris Webber? John Salmons as backup?
Iverson hates losing and whenever he plays he tends to go crazy and play with enthusiam. Problem is, Sixers management didn't do a good job of matching the right people around him who complement this. AI isn't without his faults, he has a tendency to be a stubborn and selfish and all that. But the Sixers losing these past 5 or 6 seasons has as much to do with poor Sixers management, if not more, than it does with AI himself. But everyone keeps saying AI is selfish, not a team player, etc. as the reasons why he needs to be traded.
That is what I blame Jordan (or rather the fricking market-showtime-highlight-value).
After they (new generation) watched Jordan only what mattered was offense and showtime and how to have most of the nba fans population on their side.
One good rule - the zone came to NBA, and the game is much more interesting then it was in '90. Less isos and more team play should have occured. And it occured but still many are having the Jordan disease.
uh... Jordan was an excellent defender. People just choose to look at his explosive offensive, but he was a Bowen like shut down defender his entire career pre washington.
to all those ppl talking about Iverson making the 2001 Finals. Do you even realize the East that year was worst than the NBDL and AND1 leagues put together?????
The sorry ass East that year was 100x worse than it is this year. And this year it is pretty sorry. But Even the Wizards of today could wip that 2001 Sixers team.
it's all relative, but that year the NBA aside from a couple teams in the west, was at a laughable point.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
