Dame versus AI (Part 2)
By: Isaac O'Neill
Tags: Sports, NBA, Basketball

Iverson had a relatively short stint of greatness. Although Lillard has improved every year he’s been in the league, its hard to imagine given his size that he continues this upward trend for much longer. Dame has 6 All-Stars currently (5+the 2016 Kobe year), and 7 All-Star caliber seasons — conservatively — when balancing for conferences. Iverson has 11 All-Stars (all consecutive), and given the continued volatility of the West — with guards such as Booker, Morant, Fox, Mitchell, Murray, and others on the way up — I’d take the under on the 29 year old Lillard eclipsing that mark.

We’ll primarily refer to their 6 year peaks, a period of time long enough to etch out a Hall of Fame career, even without a championship or Finals run. Lillard’s stretch is obvious — we’ll use his last 6 years. For AI, we’ll use 1999-00 to 2004-05, the stretch where the Sixers found the most playoff success under his lead. It also happens to be both of their age 24–29 stretches, basically the traditional prime. You already know the level of consistent excellence Dame has managed these past 6 years.

If you’re having trouble remembering, Iverson made First Team All-NBA in the 1998–99 season in the 50-game lockout season, a season I was not keen on including. Over the time frame we are examining, AI made two First-Teams and three Second Teams. He missed out on All-NBA entirely in 2003–04, as he missed 34 games related to injuries, team suspensions, and a feud with Sixers coach Chris Ford. The Sixers even missed out on the playoffs entirely. So his numbers do take a hit from a poor season, but it is a prime season nonetheless, and should be factored in. Iverson made his final All-NBA appearance the next year, with a Third-Team spot, a season in which the Sixers again failed to make the playoffs.

Using this table showing statistics from Basketball Reference, there aren’t a lot of stats complimentary to AI. Over his 6 year peak, he average 1 more point per 100 possessions than Lillard (36.5 to 35.4). Yet Lillard’s offensive rating is 118 to Iverson’s 102, and Lillard’s offensive Offensive BPM is 6.3 (5th in the league over that stretch) to Iverson’s 3.8 (14th in the league).

Lillard’s efficiency is clearly better. We won’t hold the 3 point numbers against Iverson too much, since that was not his game, nor the style of the day. But his 3 point number were inefficient nonetheless. This is also reflected in Iverson’s True Shooting Percentage — a paltry 50% — landing him 51st in the league over that period, for players who played 60 games/season, averaged 25 MPG, and owned a usage rate of 22% (a reasonable bar for a solid starter). Lillard, on the other hand, has a TS% of 59% over the last 6 years, good enough for 13th in the league using the same criteria.

I’ll provide one more statistic. Win Shares/48 minutes (WS/48), is a stat that tries to estimate the number of wins a player contributes to their team, per 48 minutes (versus Win Shares, which is a volume stat summing up a players total impact over the course of a given season). The league average for WS/48 is 0.100. The average WS/48 among every All-Star season since 1980 is 0.173. Over his 6 year peak, AI averaged 0.130 Win Shares/48 minutes. That ranks as the 35th best average overall in those years (adjusting for MPG, GP, and USG%). In the last 6 years, Lillard has averaged 0.196 WS/48, ranking 13th in the league. Among the just over 1000+ All-Star nominations that have been awarded since 1980, 0.130 WS/48 stands at the 824th best. If you remove Iverson’s tumultuous 03–04 season from the average, it bumps up to 0.139, still only good for the 779th overall.

AI’s best WS/48 season is 0.190, in his 2001 MVP season. 0.190 is not an overwhelming score either. A flaw of Win Shares is that it can inflate lesser players on good teams, but for an MVP candidate in a historically bad conference, I’m unsure what excuse to look for. The average WS/48 for the top 500 All-Star seasons is 0.212. You’d expect a player of AI’s stature — an MVP widely considered to be a top 50 player of all time — to find his way in that list.

None of these stats in isolation are particularly helpful, but I think given the above table, provided with context relative to the rest of the league, a picture begins to crystallize.

It’s easy to make the case that because Iverson was carrying such a heavy load for his underwhelming 76ers squad, his efficiency numbers suffered. It’s true Iverson boasts some of the highest MPG and Usage Rates of all time. He owns 3 of the 20 highest usage rate seasons ever, as well as the highest rate over 2000–2005, beating the next highest player out by 4%. He owns 8 of the 20 highest MPG averages in single seasons since 1980. But anyone who’s watched the Blazers knows how reliant they are on Lillard as well. He has USG% of 29.9%, tied for 7th in the league. Usage percentage can be defined as estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor. A more accurate metric might be BackPicks’ Load statistic.

Load, or Offensive Load, is an estimate of the number of a player a player is “directly involved” in on offense every 100 possessions. When comparing the loads of Iverson and Lillard, they are 53 and 49 respectively. 53 (out of 100 possessions) is a lot, no doubt. In Iverson’s MVP campaign, he averaged a load of 52. This was drastically more than the other four players that rounded out the top five of the MVP vote. In terms of loads among top five MVP candidates in 2001 — along with Iverson — there was Duncan (23), Shaq (28.5), Webber (25.5), and Garnett (21.8). Interestingly, Lillard’s load this past season was actually slightly higher than Iverson’s 2001 season, logging a 52.5. However, this was only good enough for 7th in the league, behind Doncic (63.5), Young (60.7), Harden (59.6), Giannis (57.6), LeBron (56.7), and Beal (53.4).

The game has evolved in many ways since Iverson’s heyday, but offenses that entirely revolve around a singular star are far more normal than they were in 2001. The differences in various usage numbers need to be taken with that grain of salt, of course, but it still does not excuse Iverson’s efficiency rates as much as his biggest fans would like.

As an aside, it’s an interesting conversation as to whether or not Iverson would be better in today’s game. Nowadays, an AI-centric team would stretch the floor and work around Iverson’s ferocious rim attacks. He would likely function very much like the Russell Westbrook we see today. We now know how efficient two (or three) free throws are, and given the low scoring of the league during Iverson’s prime, his 12 FT attempts per 100 are extremely impressive. But these heliocentric offenses that revolve around a sole player rely on very high-level passing, something that Iverson did not have. We’ve also seen Westbrook struggle due to poor outside shooting, a problem AI would likely share. Defensive liabilities as severe as Iverson are also fewer and farther between in today’s age. Offenses are better than ever at exploiting those matchups, not so coincidentally behind the emphasis in perimeter skills.