- Allen Iverson is one of the greatest scorers in NBA history
- Iverson took a ton of shots to get his points, though
- He occupies 5 spots on the list of the 10 highest field goal attempts per game seasons
Pound-for-pound, Allen Iverson might just be the greatest scorer in NBA history, but he took a lot of shots to get his points. He took so many, in fact, that he occupies half the spots on the top 10 list of the highest field goal attempts per game seasons in the last 27 years.
1. Allen Iverson – 27.8 FGA, 31.4 PPG (2001-02 NBA Season)
2. Kobe Bryant – 27.2 FGA, 35.4 PPG (2005-06 NBA Season)
3. Allen Iverson – 25.5 FGA, 31.1 PPG (2000-01 NBA Season)
4. Allen Iverson – 25.3 FGA, 33.0 PPG (2005-06 NBA Season)
5. Allen Iverson – 24.8 FGA, 28.4 PPG (1999-00 NBA Season)
6. James Harden – 24.5 FGA, 36.1 PPG (2018-19 NBA Season)
7. Tracy McGrady – 24.2 FGA, 32.1 PPG (2002-03 NBA Season)
8. Allen Iverson – 24.2 FGA, 30.7 PPG (2004-05 NBA Season)
9. Jerry Stackhouse – 24.1 FGA, 29.8 PPG (2000-01 NBA Season)
10. Russell Westbrook – 24.0 FGA, 31.6 PPG (2016-17 NBA Season)
While it’d be easy to just label them, Iverson in particular, as chuckers who only care about scoring, in quite a few of the instances, their teams needed them to take a bulk of the shots. A deeper look shows just that.
The Philadelphia 76ers had a rather simple game plan during Iverson’s prime. They surrounded him with defensive-minded players in order to cover for his deficiencies on that end of the floor.
It meant, though, that he was basically their whole offense. While that approach ended up not being very successful in the postseason, it did actually work in 1999-00. Iverson led the 76ers to the NBA Finals, where they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers led by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.
In the case of Kobe, the Lakers had missed the playoffs in 2004-05 after O’Neal had been traded. Bryant just had a mediocre roster around him, and really the only way they were going to win was if he became even more aggressive on offense. Bryant did manage to drag them to the playoffs in 2006 by taking on that heavy load.
For James Harden, the 2018-19 season was the one where we all thought Chris Paul was past his best. So, head coach Mike D’Antoni gave Harden even more freedom than before to let it fly, and he duly obliged.
As for Tracy McGrady, 2002-03 was just yet another season when co-star Grant Hill missed a significant amount of time with injury. Hill played just 29 games, and an ascending McGrady took over the offense to guide the Orlando Magic to the playoffs.
Jerry Stackhouse is perhaps a bit of a surprising inclusion here, but he was the big name on a poor Detroit Pistons team. With no other player even remotely close to being of an All-Star level on offense, Stackhouse was given the green light. Despite that, though, the Pistons still missed the playoffs, with just a 32-50 record.
Lastly, we come to Russell Westbrook, and this one is pretty obvious. Kevin Durant had left in free agency in 2016 which meant Westbrook had to shoulder the entire load on offense. He averaged a triple-double that season to win MVP and took the team to the playoffs.
While no one on this list except for Iverson in that one season had a great deal of postseason success in those campaigns, them taking the shots was really what the teams needed.
Would some more ball movement have helped generate slightly better results? Sure, but in a lot of these cases, their teammates just weren’t good enough on offense to make a significant difference
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