Michael Jordan would’ve been surpassed as the greatest of all time by Allen Iverson if he were about 6 inches taller, according to Max Kellerman.
Allen Iverson is listed at being 6 feet tall on the dot but darn near everybody knows that he’s around the 5’10 or 5’11 mark at best. So, the fact that he accomplished everything from scoring titles to league MVPs makes it even more impressive than it already is. Not to mention the fact that he carried the 76ers to the 2001 NBA Finals and got one game off the Lakers all by himself.
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From his rookie season in 1996 all the way up to his second season with the Denver Nuggets in the 2007-08 season, Allen Iverson would never average below 22 points per game. Five out of these eleven season saw him average over 30 points a night, which is beyond absurd given how the floor was spaced out in the late 90s to the mid-2000s.
Despite being around the 5’11 mark, AI cemented himself as one of the greatest guards to have ever laced up to take to NBA hardwood. However, Max Kellerman offers a hypothesis that states he could’ve been even greater given one added feature to his physique.
Allen Iverson could’ve been greater than Michael Jordan, according to Max Kellerman.
Allen Iverson recently went on the ‘Club Shay Shay’ podcast, hosted by Shannon Sharpe, and boldly claimed that he would’ve been a better football player than he was a basketball player. Max Kellerman reacted to this by saying he could’ve been the greatest basketball of all time, had he been 6 foot 6.
.@maxkellerman doesn’t doubt that Allen Iverson would’ve been better in football than basketball.
“AI’s one of the greatest athletes of all time. His name doesn’t come up enough in great athlete conversations.” pic.twitter.com/WJLn8BxpOM
— First Take (@FirstTake) August 24, 2021
Kellerman isn’t the first to share this sentiment as Kobe Bryant once said that we should all be thankful that AI wasn’t 6’5 or over. This just goes to show the respect that ‘The Answer’ has garnered all across the league from superstars who are now considered to be legends in the game.
To play devil’s advocate however, if a player was drastically different in height, perhaps they might’ve not trained the same exact way as they did when at their current. So, if Allen Iverson was around 6’5 from his junior year in high school and onwards, he might’ve worked on skills that weren’t related to getting by defenders as quickly as he did.
Nevertheless, these are all hypotheticals that’re being thrown out there and it’s safe to say that someone with AI’s mentality would find a way to be great no matter the height.
