Should Allen Iverson Make the Hall of Fame?

Allen Iverson.

6'0", 165 lbs.
26.7 ppg career
2.2 steals per game career
.425 fg % career
41.1 minutes per game career
6.2 assists per game
Led league in scoring four times; one of only four players to ever do so
96-97 Rookie of the Year
2000-01 League MVP
10-time All-Star and a two-time All-Star Game MVP…
Named to a total of seven All-NBA Teams (First Team in 1998-99, 2000-01 and 2004-05; Second Team in 1999-00, 2001-02 and 2002-03; Third Team in 2005-06).
Only player in NBA history to lead the league in steals in for three straight seasons (2000-01 through 2002-03)…
Only player in NBA history to twice lead the league in minutes per game for three straight seasons (seven seasons overall)

I say yes. Dude was a total freak for a solid 11 years, plus an MVP pretty much guarantees you an invite to Springfield, right?

what? of course!

don't see how this is even a close call.

#6 all-time in PPG

trailing only

1. Michael Jordan* 30.12
2. Wilt Chamberlain* 30.07
3. LeBron James 27.81
4. Elgin Baylor* 27.36
5. Jerry West* 27.03

(i tend to think that maybe lebron's ppg will drop several points in the end)

yes down to 12.7 PPG.

how is this even a question

which hall of fame.

Just askin'. Lack of a ring makes it at least somewhat interesting.

as someone who grew up in philly and watched this dude on my TV for years this is an automatic lock for me. would be curious to hear cases of dissent from ppl outside philly

He deserves the nod.

Selfishly, I want him in so I can say I played against a hall of famer in a pickup game.

yes, even tho i think his game was poisonous if u wanted to win a title, thats not what the hall of fame is bout. its about true OGs of ballin.

Iverson's achilles' heel in making the HOF is his personality. Based solely on his game and his stats, he'll make it. But there are a ton of guys who've been statistical standouts while playing on mediocre teams and later they struggle to make it into the hall, because they had an uneven reputation or they pissed people off.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1054/5120276643_468dff43d1_z.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ucIWv.jpg

lookin old

gonna be hard to get dissent even from outside of philly, no question he belongs in the hall. blam took care of the hard numbers, which are basically untouchable. he went well beyond the "high scorer on mediocre team" stereotype into mvp territory- even a bad team with AI had a chance to win every night, and probably could have gotten a championship had they not run into one of the two buzzsaw teams of the 2000s (shaq-kobe lakers, odd-numbered-year spurs). he didn't really make his teammates better so much as force them to play at least moderately above their heads so as not to look awful in comparison to him.

on the subjective side, there must be a place for a guy who defined much of the post-jordan era: beyond the cornrows and "difficult" attitude he was as thrilling to watch play as he was in interviews. there should also be a place for the best guy under 6' ever (??) because if ai cracks 5'10 then i'm darko milicic.

and he just seemed terrifying to play against in the same way that guys must hate to face kobe, wade, maybe durant or ray allen on a hot shooting night now- sometimes it seemed no matter how a team played ai was just going to win out of sheer force of will.

i wonder if he played now (and was, say, 28 years old) which two stars would try to line up with him in a big three type arrangement. it's amazing to look at some of those philly rosters and see the dreck he had to work with.

http://deadspin.com/allen-iverson-has-destroyed-the-legacy-of-allen-iverson-1708683536

thought we had a dedicated general purpose AI thread, but that's on ILE. anyways, this is a pretty icky read. i mean this stuff has all been around awhile or at least whispered about, but it's hard to see all this shittiness in one place

Never forget:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXIGgVo00rw

20 years ago today and I still think about this night all the time.