I'm sure this conversation has come up before, but a friend and I were talking about Irving and where he could go and he said Celtics should make a big offer, including IT, Crowder, etc.
I said Irving wasn't worth IT plus other assets, as IT has had the best individual season of the two and has proven he can lead the team. Perhaps Irving is more talented (debatable), but he's not worth relinquishing depth for. He responded with "stop acting like Thomas is Iverson."
Which got me thinking.... is Isaiah actually better than Iverson?
I took to the stats because I always felt Iverson was one of the most overrated superstars to ever play. And the stats pretty much reinforced my stance that he definitely was overrated, but perhaps IT is better.
First off, AI has an MVP. Kudos on that, but looking at that season, he was actually a pretty dreadful scorer. Yes he scored a lot, but he also played basically the entire game. He shot an abysmal .447 eFG% and his TS% was .518. Compare that with Isaiah's .546 and .625, respectively. Isaiah's per-36 numbers were basically better across the board.
Now I know Iverson has some better (and worse) seasons, but his career ORtg is less than his DRtg (IT's is +5 for his career and +10 last year, better than ANY season in AI's career). His WS/48 is signicantly less than Isaiah's as well.
If Isaiah puts up a few more seasons close to the one he just put up, I don't see how this is debatable. Yes he got a lot more steals, but that's really the only thing he did better. Shooting (across the board - advantage IT), ball-handling (Isaiah significantly better A:T, 2.21 vs. 1.72), and even +/- (debunking the "Iverson had a trash team" theory)... I really think Thomas can be considered the better player of the two.
What say you guys?