Vince Carter's Retirement

[Apollo]

Dirk wasn't a 2-way player, but he was surrounded by the perfect complimentary pieces and now his legacy is untouchable. AI could volume chuck all day and be inefficient because he had All-defense calibre teammates, a DPOY (Mutombo) and a championship calibre coach (Brown) which resulted in a top 5 defense.

IMO, these superstar legacies are like 90% influenced by whether or not management surrounded the superstar with a championship supporting cast & coach + luck. KG and Dirk are perfect examples of that. No wonder modern superstars have decided to take things into their own hands and team up to win chips.

I think you must forget that championship Mavericks team. They weren't seriously considered a contender. Dirk played at a legendary level and deserves a lot of credit. He had a solid team but many were calling it a fluke, which is a great compliment to him.

[golden]

I think you must forget that championship Mavericks team. They weren't seriously considered a contender. Dirk played at a legendary level and deserves a lot of credit. He had a solid team but many were calling it a fluke, which is a great compliment to him.

Not forgetting 2011 at all. My point was more along the lines that Mavs surrounded Dirk with good-to-great defenders at every starting position to complement his main weakness (defense & rebounding) which allowed Dirk to use all his energy to just score.... which he did brilliantly.

Management had to assemble that perfect fitting roster in the first place to put him in a position to succeed. Dirk took full advantage of that and all the credit to him. My point is that it doesn't happen for a lot of legit superstars + injuries. You also have to factor in luck.

[Apollo]

Dirk had the highest defensive win share on the team during that run. He dominated on offense but he was good on defense.

The Mavs were a team built for him but most teams build around one guy even when the second best guy is another superstar. I can't think of too many guys in the league today who can win with a team like the 2011 Mavs. Anyway, I get what you're saying, I just think Dirk is a bad example.

[chris]

^This

I used to look at Iverson's boxscore every game. In 2001, his MVP year, his boxscore was always - 9/30, 8/35, 10/34. 9/36, 7/32. It was ALWAYS like that.

He averaged 31ppg that year. But I mean, if you shoot 30+ a game you better score 30+ a game lol. One of the most overrated players in the history of the NBA. His tough though, I give him that, and he gets to the line a lot, I guess that's what inflated his numbers... but he's not as great as people say.

stop talking out of your ass again and have a gander at the game log, which does not match your recollection at all.

he shot 30 or more times in 19 out of 71 games. in those games he averaged 32.8 FGA and 42.2 points. he was peak james harden in those games, basically, which is pretty incredible considering the league wide pace in 2000-01 was 91.4 compared to 100.0 last year (harden's best year).

the games where he was least efficient were the ones where he took less shots. again, that team had zero secondary options on offense. everything was up to him.

[G__Deane]

By advanced stats, he was literally a top 5 or borderline top 5 player for his two peak years here. It's a tragedy Vince never got better than 10th in MVP voting and is more a criticism of the voters than Vince.

As opposed to All Star voters who got it right for him.....best player in the league

[S.R.]

^This

I used to look at Iverson's boxscore every game. In 2001, his MVP year, his boxscore was always - 9/30, 8/35, 10/34. 9/36, 7/32. It was ALWAYS like that.

He averaged 31ppg that year. But I mean, if you shoot 30+ a game you better score 30+ a game lol. One of the most overrated players in the history of the NBA. His tough though, I give him that, and he gets to the line a lot, I guess that's what inflated his numbers... but he's not as great as people say.

Iverson took a sorry ass Sixers roster to the Finals. We give Vince a pass here but he had similar help in Toronto and more help in NJ and he never accomplished what AI did.

The problem with just looking at box scores is you make it sound like AI was just Dion Waiters with 30 FGA. He wasn't.

Edit: check Iverson vs Vince career FG%. 425 vs 435. It was a different era.

[The Great One]

stop talking out of your ass again and have a gander at the game log, which does not match your recollection at all.

he shot 30 or more times in 19 out of 71 games. in those games he averaged 32.8 FGA and 42.2 points. he was peak james harden in those games, basically, which is pretty incredible considering the league wide pace in 2000-01 was 91.4 compared to 100.0 last year (harden's best year).

the games where he was least efficient were the ones where he took less shots. again, that team had zero secondary options on offense. everything was up to him.

You can use the "he had no secondary options on offense" excuse all you want. Sure he didn't have a big name teammates on that team other than Mutombo who's a defensive player. The fact is 5 other Sixers on that 01 team averaged in double figures while averaging less than 9 FGA a game. One other guy(Lynch) averaged 8ppg. Iverson on the other hand averaged 26 shots a game, 4 assists a game, and shot 42% from the field. Why didn't he involved his teammates more?

Allen Iverson was the ultimate inefficient ballhog. When I think of ballhog I think of Iverson. Even in his Denver years playing with Carmelo Anthony and Kenyon Martin, Nene, Camby, Kleiza and JR Smith....he STILL averaged 20 shots a game. That's why he's never won anything. That 07-08 Nuggets team was loaded. Guess where they finished in the West? 8th.

[S.R.]

By what measure did Kobe and Iverson have just as good or better numbers than Vince that year? Not by WS or WS/48. Only Shaq had a higher PER, a pretty bad stat for overall player evaluation but a pretty good one for doing a catch all assessment of a player's "numbers." Impact stat estimates had Vince head and shoulders above that entire group except Shaq, and above Shaq when taking into account his heavier minutes load.

The argument completely boils down to team success and including way too much of it in evaluating individual players. If you leave out team success (which we absolutely should). Impact stat estimates attempt to capture defence (and besides Duncan none of those guys were exactly stellar defensively).

Both Doncic and Lillard are outside the top 5 in BPM and VORP this year, Lillard barely sneaks in on total WS and Doncic sneaks in on PER. If either Doncic or Lillard ranked as the most impactful player in the entire league along with putting up those top 5 production numbers, that would be a good comparison. As it is, it's disingenuous.Vince's statistical profile in terms of rankings that season is more comparable to somewhere between Harden and Kawhi this year. Or between LeBron and Giannis. It was an incredible season (and the season prior was nearly as impressive).

The argument also boils down to defence, which stats aren't great at capturing, how much a player helps drive wins, like Lowry does, and penchance for big shots/plays at the right moment (maybe overlaps with the previous point). These things are all hard to capture in personal stats but tend to show up on the playoffs. When you see a guy take over a key stretch of a key game. When a guy snatched the momentum back for your team. When a guy hits The Shot.

Top 5 guys do these things in the biggest moments. They drive your team to wins.

IMHO this is the kind of stuff Vince never really had. It's why he peaked as the alpha dog with 48 wins and a second round out. I mean, that's not very good. It's especially not good in a weak EC like in 2001. It's not good if that's basically your career peak.

Also man - Kawhi, Shaq, Lebron, Giannis - you listed a bunch of guys who have a far superior defensive impact vs peak Vince. I would put money on all 4 of those guys taking the 2000-01 Raptors further than Vince did.

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[The Great One]

Iverson is so popular because he brought that hip hop culture to the game. He was also pretty stylish. He was also the first player to ever wear a football armband in an NBA game. Now, most players wear a an armband. Iverson is probably one of the most popular NBA players of all time. Just because you're popular doesn't mean you're great.

I saw a poll on ESPN a couple of months ago on who'd they'd rather build their team around, Iverson or Steph Curry. Iverson won in a landslide, it's not even close which is hilarious to me. Forget about Steph, I'd rather build my team around Klay over Iverson.

[DanH]

The argument also boils down to defence, which stats aren't great at capturing, how much a player helps drive wins, like Lowry does, and penchance for big shots/plays at the right moment (maybe overlaps with the previous point). These things are all hard to capture in personal stats but tend to show up on the playoffs. When you see a guy take over a key stretch of a key game. When a guy snatched the momentum back for your team. When a guy hits The Shot.

Top 5 guys do these things in the biggest moments. They drive your team to wins.

IMHO this is the kind of stuff Vince never really had. It's why he peaked as the alpha dog with 48 wins and a second round out. I mean, that's not very good. It's especially not good in a weak EC like in 2001. It's not good if that's basically your career peak.

Also man - Kawhi, Shaq, Lebron, Giannis - you listed a bunch of guys who have a far superior defensive impact vs peak Vince. I would put money on all 4 of those guys taking the 2000-01 Raptors further than Vince did.

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Defence, stats struggle with, but we have stats for team impact and they are pretty good. BPM is flawed for real time current evaluations but is a decent measure for historicals, and the reason I put Vince in the company of those insanely good players is because his impact graded out similar to theirs (in terms of league ranks). That's my point - the impact estimates and production stats we have for that era put Vince in the company of those players, who are ridiculously good.

And any player can have a difficult playoff run or two. Vince's problem was his peak was too short for him to get multiple cracks at it with different/better teammates like all those other players had. Giannis has been insanely good for a while now. And yet his first five seasons in the league: missed playoffs, lost 1st round, missed playoffs, lost 1st round, lost 1st round. Has never made the Finals.

Did we watch the same Vince? Didn't step up in the big moments or take over when it mattered? Guy was dropping 50-point games in the playoffs.

[golden]

The argument also boils down to defence, which stats aren't great at capturing, how much a player helps drive wins, like Lowry does, and penchance for big shots/plays at the right moment (maybe overlaps with the previous point). These things are all hard to capture in personal stats but tend to show up on the playoffs. When you see a guy take over a key stretch of a key game. When a guy snatched the momentum back for your team. When a guy hits The Shot.

Top 5 guys do these things in the biggest moments. They drive your team to wins.

IMHO this is the kind of stuff Vince never really had. It's why he peaked as the alpha dog with 48 wins and a second round out. I mean, that's not very good. It's especially not good in a weak EC like in 2001. It's not good if that's basically your career peak.

Also man - Kawhi, Shaq, Lebron, Giannis - you listed a bunch of guys who have a far superior defensive impact vs peak Vince. I would put money on all 4 of those guys taking the 2000-01 Raptors further than Vince did.

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Not disagreeing, but you're moving goalposts here. The original debate was talking about Vince's peak not being anywhere close to an elite guy who can win you a championship. Regardless of whether VC peaked in 2001.... that peak is among the best (if not "The Best") season for any player in a Raptors' jersey. And as Dan showed, Carter was top 2-5 in winning & impact type stats, so where does the "he didn't impact winning... like Lowry" critique come from?

The fact that the franchise couldn't put the pieces around VC (e.g. like figuring out a way to keep T-Mac), doesn't take anything away from that spectacular peak.... however brief it was. And scoring 50 points in a playoff game and averaging 30/6/6/2/2 in a playoff series isn't "taking over"? What criteria are we using here?

[KeonClark]

You can use the "he had no secondary options on offense" excuse all you want. Sure he didn't have a big name teammates on that team other than Mutombo who's a defensive player. The fact is 5 other Sixers on that 01 team averaged in double figures while averaging less than 9 FGA a game. One other guy(Lynch) averaged 8ppg. Iverson on the other hand averaged 26 shots a game, 4 assists a game, and shot 42% from the field. Why didn't he involved his teammates more?

Allen Iverson was the ultimate inefficient ballhog. When I think of ballhog I think of Iverson. Even in his Denver years playing with Carmelo Anthony and Kenyon Martin, Nene, Camby, Kleiza and JR Smith....he STILL averaged 20 shots a game. That's why he's never won anything. That 07-08 Nuggets team was loaded. Guess where they finished in the West? 8th.

Yeah selfish ass iverson

drags a last place quality roster to 6 series wins in 4 years and you're talking bout he shoulda been finding shots for aaron mckie

and then you come with:

Even in his Denver years playing with Carmelo Anthony and Kenyon Martin, Nene, Camby, Kleiza and JR Smith

is that...a good roster? Remarkable they won 50 games in a loaded west, a bunch of problem children and no defense all stars

[planetmars]

In 2000-2001 AI was better than Vince. Shaq should have won MVP but AI still should have came in 2nd. I don't see how Vince touches AI that year. Looking back at AI's career at a whole though, yeah it was underwhelming. But so was Vince's.

The only reason AI was brought up was to look at the 2000-2001 season.. which was Vince's peak season. Vince's impact stats were crazy good. Yet he's still not in the top 5 for me. His mediocre defense drops him down a peg. He's in the 6-8 range not top 5 for me.

Vince did score 50 points in a playoff game. He was really good. But still not in my top 5.

I personally can't have Vince over Shaq, AI, Duncan, Webber and KG that year. I had Kobe over him but I can see now that Vince had a better season than Kobe. Kidd is in that range too.

[Hotshot]

Even in his Denver years playing with Carmelo Anthony and Kenyon Martin, Nene, Camby, Kleiza and JR Smith

is that...a good roster? Remarkable they won 50 games in a loaded west, a bunch of problem children and no defense all stars

That roster was considered good enough to compete for a championship when Iverson was traded there.

So yes it was considered good roster for the time (much better then 76ers) & A.I was supposed to have brought them to the next level.

[planetmars]

That roster was considered good enough to compete for a championship when Iverson was traded there.

So yes it was considered good roster for the time (much better then 76ers) & A.I was supposed to have brought them to the next level.

Was it? Looking at basketball reference, they show that the 2007-2008 Nuggets had a pre-season expectation of 48.5 wins. They ended up with 50. +1500 championship odds which isn't really good. Iverson was 32 so no longer really in his prime either in that second year in Denver.