Iverson: Making His Teammates Better

This is the time of year when the MVP race really heats up. Pundits can be heard debating the merits of various candidates from one coast to the other. The most common phrase that seems to uttered in such debates is, "(Insert superstar name here) makes his teammates better." While such a phrase can be hard to quantify simply because numbers often lie (for example, just because a guy's assist numbers are up doesn't mean he always make his teammates better) things like overall team chemistry, continuity and wins are usually a pretty good indicator.

For the Denver Nuggets, they do not have a legitimate MVP candidate this season. However, they do have a guy who appears to be showing the first signs of making his teammates significantly better, a guy named Allen Iverson.

Such rhetoric might seem ludicrous given Iverson's reputation as a guy who is only concerned about scoring titles, but if you look at how the Nuggets have played in the last month or so, a definite pattern seems to be emerging.

Linas Kleiza is playing the best basketball of his career and his teammates are starting to trust him down the stretch as evidenced by his game clinching three last night in Los Angeles against the Clippers. In fact, he played so well in the month of March that he ended the month as the NBA's highest three-point percentage shooter.

Nene looks like an All-Star caliber player on the block and has teams around the league who could have acquired him in a trade for Iverson regretting they did not pull the trigger. Talking to opposing players and coaches, it's clear that Nene is a player they now fear, so much so that one scout recently told me that Nene's play will be the deciding factor in how far this team goes come playoff time.

And beyond the individual rise of certain players, the team is playing a more cohesive style of play on both ends of the court.

So why is it that Iverson seems to get little credit for these changes, and why are people insisting on perpetuating the story that he doesn't make his teammates better?

"How many games has he had 10-assists?" Nuggets' head coach George Karl asked on Friday. "How many games have we won when we had 10-assists? How about the development and balance of Nene and someone off our bench contributing every night and shooting a good percentage. Those don't matter? Those don't fall in the point-guard's category of help? He's still capable of getting 40 any night he plays. He's an explosive kid that understands that it comes in different packages at different moments.

"I think A.I. and Steve Blake, you have to give them a tremendous amount of credit to fight through the bad times, the frustrating times, the times when our team doesn't play well because other than me and the coaches they're the next guys who kind of feel responsible for it as much as anybody. They're the ones we talk to the next day. They're the ones that get kind of get crucified for not having ball movement, or what happened to the execution, or what the hell happened here? I think A.I is very much into trying to develop winning. He's said that the day he got here, and I don't think it's changed."

Right now, Iverson is helping the Nuggets win as opposed to just talking about it. Of late, he's found a nice balance between getting teammates involved early and then making big shots when the Nuggets need them in the fourth period. This approach has helped the team believe they can be successful as a whole, especially when the game is on the line. A sense of trust in one another not before seen at any point this season is starting to develop, and with it, the true identity the team has been searching for seems to be emerging.

"There's no championship team that doesn't do it without six or seven good players, and I think we've moved very quickly in a very good direction," Karl explained. "The beginning of the year we didn't know who those players were, but at the end of the year we look at Nene, L.K., J.R. and even Steve Blake as quality players who can help us play at a high level."

Each of those players Karl cited deserves credit for the level of individual responsibility it takes to improve in the NBA. That said, if they were playing with Steve Nash, Nash would be praised as the guy who helped each one of them have career-years. With Iverson, though, you rarely hear anybody mention that he is even somewhat responsible for their improvement. Anyone who has been paying attention knows differently.

While it might be hard for the doubters to acknowledge, Iverson is making his teammates better -- significantly better. Maybe someday soon it will become as en-vogue to say Iverson makes his teammates better as it is to say the same about Nash, Kobe Bryant and some of the other big name players around the league.

Free-Throw Woes

Despite how well A.I. has played of late overall, he's had his struggles from the foul-line. When asked if plans to say anything to Iverson, Karl replied: "I don't go there right now. I think it's a slump, kind of a spell. I know A.I.'s (injured) elbow is not the easiest thing for him. I don't know if that gets in his way on free-throws or not, but his elbow is still fairly sore."

Team MVP?

Karl recently gave some insight into who he believes is Denver's team MVP . . . with a small caveat.

"MVP? Most Valuable Player? That's an interesting question. I'd probably have to give it to Melo. The power early in the season when we played well. It would be tough if you took it from the last 25-games because a lot of guys have played well."