Iverson, Alpha Dogs, and Lone Wolves

"Hello... how bout that ride in? I guess thats why they call it Sin City haha. You guys might not know this but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one man wolf pack. But when my sister brought Doug home, I knew he was one of my own. And my wolf pack, it grew by one. So there... there was two of us in the wolf pack. I was alone first in the pack and Doug joined in later. And six months ago, when Doug introduced me to you guys I thought "wait a second, could it be?" And now I know for sure, I just added two more guys to my wolf pack. Four of us wolves, running around the desert together in Las Vegas, looking for strippers and cocaine."--The Hangover

I recently read a piece by Jemele Hill of ESPN.com detailing why Grizzlies fans (all 6 of them) should be wary of the Allen Iverson era. I don't know why, but I kept going over it in my mind. The result is what you get here.

Iverson is, love him or hate him, one of the most fascinating athletes of his generation. Despite having spent the majority of his career with zero for a supporting cast (Larry Hughes, Eric Snow, Matt Geiger anyone?), he managed to win an MVP award, take the Sixers to an NBA Finals, and ten-or-so years from now, he will be a sure-thing first-ballot Hall of Famer. All while remaining the quintessenal example of the me-first point guard, a type of player generally less successful than any other prototype.

Iverson's talent was never lacking, and that is what makes him so fascinating. The fact that he chose basketball is what kept him from becoming an all-time great. Had he picked up a tennis racket at age 5 and never looked back, we'd be talking about him as one of the all-time greats; a kid from the projects long on talent and athleticism who made himself into a legend: think both Williams sisters rolled into one. If he had focused on becoming a running back rather than a point guard, he would've become the heir to Barry Sanders--an undersized, overquick back with moves upon moves and a fire that never stopped burning.

The problem was, Iverson became a basketball player. He had a me-first mentality in the ultimate team game. You hear all the time about the Alpha Dogs--the players who are unquestionably the go-to-guys, who go down as the all-time greats by mixing talent and leadership. Dirk Nowitzki will never be argued as the greatest basketball player of his generation because he lacked that leadership ability--he had Alpha Dog talent with a pack-dog menality. Iverson was the opposite--Alpha Dog talent with a Lone Wolf mentality. And it's not his fault.

Growing up poor, carrying a talent-thin Georgetown team in college, Iverson spent his formative years learning that the only person he could trust was himself. When he got to the pros things got, if anything, worse--see again, the cavalcade of second-rate talent Philly continually trotted out behind him. Iverson did not play with another world-class player until 2006, when Chris Webber arrived in Philly. By that point, it was too late. Iverson was 31 years old, and had already learned that the team went as he went--that he was better off going one-on-five than trying to involve his teammates. The damage was done.

There is a difference between an Alpha Dog and a Lone Wolf. Alpha Dogs are the unquestioned leader of the pack. The pack gets their hunt, but the Alpha Dog runs things. Michael Jordan was an Alpha Dog. Magic Johnson was an Alpha Dog. Guys like that will let their teammates get involved, but take over in crunch time. Winning is important, but so is keeping everyone happy.

Iverson, on the other hand, is what I would call a Lone Wolf. The teammates don't matter. If they can help without getting in the way, fine. If not, he goes it alone.

Lone Wolves can work, particularly in individual sports. Even in a sport like football, in which the team aspect plays a role but an individual player can dominate, a Lone Wolf can be effective. Basketball is a sport that requires teamwork on all fronts. You can't go one-on-five and expect to win regularly.

(The most interesting thing? Probably the second-best example of a Lone Wolf in the NBA right now is Kobe Bryant. And his title this past year, while worthy of discussion, deserves it's own column.)

These past few years, Iverson has experienced a shell shock as he was surrounded by talent for the first time in his life. For the first time, he didn't have to do everything--but he was instinctively trained to do everything. Problems, predictably, arose when Iverson was paired with other players who weren't happy to sit back and watch him work. And he got ripped apart for it--but it wasn't his fault.

Let's say you have a cat. You don't want to bother with training the cat to use a litterbox, so you train the cat to poop outside. Then, you move to an apartment or condo with no yard, so this is no longer an option. Then, when the cat can't adapt to the litterbox, you yell about how stupid it is. Would this make any sense? Absolutely not. So why is it we're basically doing the same thing with Iverson?

Hill has a point--the Iverson experiment is not going to end well for Memphis. That's the problem with him--he's still going to go one-on-five, he's still going to try to win on his own, only he's slower, weaker, and less accurate shooting than he was in his prime. Because of this, he will either have to learn how to share, or wash out of the league. As I mentioned in discussing Brett Favre, such is the choice for older athletes--adapt, or wash out.

What might have been.