An illustrious career has ended today as The Answer, The 3rd Degree, Allen Iverson has announced retirement.
The 6 foot point guard was the first pick in the 1996 NBA Draft and was in my view the pioneer of the point guard golden age we watch every ball night.
Now lets get to the nitty gritty. AI was drafted by the Philadelphia 76’ers after two dominant years at Georgetown University where he set the schools record scoring average (22.9 PPG) and won the Big East conference defensive player of the year for both years.
He was with the Sixers for Ten years and what a Ten years they were…
Rookie of the year
Four time scoring champion
2001 league MVP
All Star for Six of them ten years at Philly.
Three time league leader in steals.
And don’t forget his formidable 2001 NBA Finals appearance against the Los Angeles Lakers where he scored 48 points in Game One. Sure they lost the series 4-1, what do you expect he was facing Kobe, Shaq and Phil Jackson, but it was his most successful season.
Moving on through his career. December 2006 saw Philadelphia trading Iverson and forward Ivan McFarlin to the Denver Nuggets for Andre Miller, Joe Smith, and two first-round picks in the 07 NBA Draft. This meant that Denver had (at the time) the two top scorers in the league (Iverson and Carmelo Anthony).
After that his career started going on the downturn… Fines, hate by referees, Losing minutes in Detroit to Rodney Stuckey, a return to Philly, heading to Turkey and now he’s broke…
It’s safe to say its an end of an era. Allen Iverson, I salute you.
