4 Best players to spend just 1 season with the Pistons

4 Best Players to Spend Just 1 Season with the Pistons

#1 Allen Iverson

Finding Bubba Chuck at the top of this list may make for an anticlimactic ending, but it also speaks to how he is a great among greats. He’s best remembered for his time with the Philadelphia 76ers, including the iconic moment when he stepped over Tyron Lue en route to carrying the Sixers to a 1-0 lead over the Lakers in the 2001 Finals. Iverson never got any closer to winning a championship, but he’s regarded as one of the all-time best players in NBA history just the same.

Making his career even more remarkable is that he was barely six feet tall. A.I. was drafted by the Sixers with the 1st pick of the 1996 draft and wasted no time showing the world his brilliance with a Rookie-of-the-Year campaign during which he scored 23.5 ppg. He won four scoring titles, finishing his career with an average of 26.7 ppg in 2010. “The Answer,” was an 11-time all-star who captured the MVP award once. He won a bronze medal while representing the United States at the 2004 Olympics.

Iverson has had his critics and his controversies, but his Hall-of-Fame career was the stuff of legend. By the time he was traded to Detroit in 2008, his skills had deteriorated compared to what they were in his peak. He still managed to average 17.4 points a game as a Piston.

Sadly, Iverson will be more closely associated with mistakes that then-General Manager Joe Dumars made and casinos more so than anything he did while on the court during his time with the organization. He was shut down with a back injury merely a few weeks before the Pistons were victimized by the Cavaliers in the first round of the playoffs. It would have been exciting to see A.I. take the floor in Pistons red, white, and blue and go head-to-head with Cleveland’s James, but it was not to be.

Iverson’s time with the Pistons was indeed forgettable, but he is nevertheless one of the greatest players in NBA history.