Pierce was probably a top 10 player of his era. Can we say the same about Pippen? I don't think I can.
All-NBA voters disagreed.
Allen Iverson had 7 ALL-NBA selections. I'd love for you to mathematically prove to me Iverson was a better offensive player than Pierce.
Iverson did more with less.
That's very subjective. In 10 seasons with Philadelphia, Iverson could only manage 5 seasons with records above .500%. Statistics show he was horribly inefficient and not a winner.
Who do you think the 2nd best player was on AI’s team that made the finals? Pick a guy, then make a case for that guy being better than Antoine that includes comparing all star appearances, keeping in mind Pierce never made a finals without 2-3 HOFers.
Dikembe Mutombo who is a HOF and one of the greatest defensive players of all time.
.... and was also 35, and not at all the player he was at Denver nor Atlanta
Still a much more impactful player than Walker, who was simply not a valuable player.
Dikembe put up 11-11-1 that year with over 2 blocks, solid, but that very same year Antoine put up 22-9-5 with 1.5 steals and made the all star team, and that's just a random Antoine season. He was definitely better than Dikembe at age 35, and it's not close.
Then you consider peak Antoine and young prime Paul got obliterated by JKidd and the Nets, and that Iverson obliterated those Nets by himself to get to the finals... That's why Iverson gets props, and gets to claim he did less with more. Piece got less far than Iverson, with better teammates.
I don’t care how many points Walker put up. He was a horribly inefficient player, which led to his rather quick NBA demise. Mutombo was better.
Well, when we basically just took Walker off those teams, teams Walker helped made the playoffs and peak in the ECF once, and they then were led by only Pierce with weak supporting talent (like Iverson had), the Celtics became one of the worst teams in the league, finishing 2nd worst in 2006-7.
With a similarly bad surrounding roster (Snow-AI-McKie-Ratliff-Deke, they were bad, I watched them a lot, 2 of them couldn’t play in the NBA today), Iverson made the finals and finished 2nd best.
Iverson making the finals with that roster is the loser’s version of Dirk beating the Heat with no all star teammate. It’s a truly incredible achievement, and Iverson was amazing, and an offensive system all by himself like a Dirk or Curry or Lebron (but less efficient, as it’s hard to do that at 5’11”).
Pierce is great, probably a top 30 player for at least the next 5 years, as is AI, but he needed 2 HOFers (a top 20 all timer and the 2nd best shooter ever) to get as far as AI did with scraps.