Predicting Allen Iverson

Categorized as: Author: Patrick, Fantasy Basketball, Free Agency, NBA Teams, Philadelphia 76ers, Player News
Posted on: December 4th, 2009

Nels has already touched on the Allen Iverson to Philadelphia move in The Not-Quite-Post Iverson Post. It seems that we generally agree on Iverson’s fantasy value with the Sixers and – at least from the way I read the post – Nels kind of began to talk himself into Iverson a little by the end of it.

And that’s kind of the funny thing about Iverson. I (and I think many others) just want to write him off as an over the hill trouble maker who should just retire so that we never have to hear about him for the rest of our lives. But once I took a good look at his stats, I saw that that they were not quite as bad as I remember. Yes, his numbers have fallen off from their peak, but it is easy to forget how good his peak was. Even as 34-year old malcontent, maybe Iverson does still have enough left in the tank to start for an NBA team. Reader wilsonchow commented on The Not-Quite-Post Iverson Post and gives us the hometown version of that argument:

AI can still play, period.
I’ve always thought he still has it, the whole “does he still have it” talk is really ridiculous…
His 07-08 stats: 26.4 pts, 7.1 ast, 2 stl, FG 45.8%
His career stats: 27 pts, 6.2 ast, 2.2 stl, FG 42.5%

That [07-08] was the last season AI was still a starter and his stats were even better than his career stats with higher ast and FG%. I agree his FG% will drop back to his career %, but he can still provide the same stats. I think at least 20 ppg is easy for him.

Let’s ignore Iverson’s career stats for now. Michael Jordan averaged 30 points a game in his career, but I wouldn’t want to throw him out on the court for yet another unretirement.

But how about the other point? A mere two years ago, Iverson averaged 42 minutes a game for the Nuggets and finished with 26.4 points and 7.1 assists over 82 games. Iverson regressed quite a bit in 08-09 with the Pistons, however, he was obviously not happy with his role on the team. Detroit also tends to be a horrible team for fantasy purposes*. The combination of those two things may have made Iverson look like he was about to fall off a cliff stats wise when he was really just in a bad situation.

So, despite wilsonchow thinking it is a ridiculous question, I still have to ask, does Iverson still have it? And what I really mean by that is what kind of stats should be expected from Iverson in his second go around with the Sixers?

To attempt to answer that question more accurately than my first half-asssed attempt, I took Iverson’s year-by-year stats and adjusted them based on two factors: 1) pace (or the average number of possessions per game his teams had), and 2) the amount of minutes he played per game on average for the year.

I graphed the results out by year taking Iverson’s adjusted stats and calculating them out as if he averaged 35 minutes a game his entire career. Why? Well, that is my rough assumption for what he will average with the Sixers while Lou Williams is out and it allows us to compare Iverson’s yearly stats on a level playing field. Here are his standardized counting stats (minus blocks, which he doesn’t really do).

Alright, you can see a number of cool things from these graphs.

• Iverson had a peak (at least in terms of his scoring output) and he’s clearly past it: From 2000-2006, Iverson was able to average a pace-adjusted 25 points per 35 minutes of play. That number dropped to about 20 with the Nuggets and down to 17.5 last season with Detroit.
• Iverson’s drop in scoring has to do with him making less threes… I have not done this type of thing with any other player, but Iverson’s scoring output looks to be strongly correlated with the amount of threes he’s making. That would obviously make a lot of sense since making threes is usually a popular way to score. However, to predict his value going forward, you need to know if his big drop in threes last season with the Pistons was a fluky thing, or if he’s taking less threes for good.
• The rest of his stats remain strong: Iverson increased his assist rate beginning around 2003. It remained strong even last year. While his rebounding was never great even for a guard, it is still as good as it ever was. And while his steals are down off their peak, he is still averaging a very good 1.5+ per 35 minutes.

So, what can we expect from Iverson with the Sixers? Using a combination of regression and fuzzy math, you get something like this:

The best and worst case scenarios represent the reasonable upper and low boundary of Iverson’s potential. If you throw out last year with the Pistons and assume the Iverson is going to play big minutes for the Sixers, then it is easily possible that he averages well over 20 points a game. But on the flip side, if his performance last year was a sign of him getting old fast, then get ready for him to crash and burn. The likely case is that he continues the slow aging trend that began in 2006, but bounces back from an off year with Detroit where he never meshed with the style of the team.

So, I was never expecting to say this, but yes, I think Iverson still has it.

*Detroit had the second lowest pace in the league in 2008-09 at only 86.7 possessions per 48 minute game.

Other Stuff Like This:

• Day 131 of 170: Allen Iverson has 99 Problems and a Bitch is One (2)
• Day 71 of 170: In Which Patrick Predicts The Future (14)
• Day 42 of 170: All About Iverson (8)
• The Not-Quite-Post Iverson Post (4)
• 2008-09 Fantasy Basketball Awards (4)
• Biggest Fantasy Disappointments of the 08-09 Season (6)
• Day 157 of 170: Chris Paul Injured (1)

Tags: Allen Iverson