So, the talk of social media right now people saying Golden State Warriors swingman Andre Iguodala is a sure fire Hall of Famer. I’ve seen multiple people who I know covers sports on a consistent basis and I’m here to say no, h*** no he isn’t. I’ll start off by saying Iguodala has picked up a lot of the Kevin Durant slack since he went down late in Game 5 of the Western Conference Semifinals, but just because he’s been a very good role player doesn’t make him a Hall of Famer.
Andre Iguodala is going to make the Hall of Fame.
— Joe Giglio (@JoeGiglioSports) May 17, 2019
So Andre Iguodala is a Hall of Famer right? Like thats not even debatable
— Mike Schneid – MikeDropSports.com (@msschneid) May 17, 2019
If Andre Iguodala doesn't make the Basketball Hall of Fame after what he's done delivering performance after performance like tonight's, they should just shut the place down. Amazing player.
— Carl Steward (@stewardsfolly) May 11, 2019
Iguodala is a very good two way player who can create for himself and others. His versatility helps the Warriors matchup with a lot of teams and with the way the pick n roll is prevalent in the current game he makes switches easy. I’m using this paragraph to show the masses I’m not an Iggy hater, I’m just a realist who compartmentalizes stuff correctly. This guy is a NBA Finals MVP, an All Star (1x) and made NBA All Defense twice (1st and 2nd team). Making five threes against the Rockets and getting a big steal against Damian Lillard to seal Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals has fueled the Hall of Fame talk, trust me I get it, but I’m here to take a few steps back.
Honestly Iguodala is pretty much Robert Horry 2.0, a guy who is a h*** of a role player, but couldn’t be a main cog of a team. He is a guy that teams need to be successful because situations aren’t too big for them. Iggy’s regular season resume is better than Horry’s if you go stats, but pure clutch moments in the playoffs I’d go Horry even with Iggy’s MVP.
At 35 years of age, he has played 15 years in the NBA and has a career average of 12.1 points, 5.1 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 1.5 steals per game. These stats don’t scream Hall of Fame, I know he’s been the sixth man for five of his six years in Golden State, but he doesn’t have average his career stats during that tenure. His stats were best with Philadelphia, but during that time he proved he wasn’t worthy of being a teams number one option and that’s no slight, but it’s the truth.
Take a dive into his playoff stats, while he does have big moments when it counts a la Horry it’s not like he’s carrying the team with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are out for the playoffs. With the Splash Brothers on the court on or off it allows Iggy to not be the main target of the defense, which in turn allows him to make plays a little more freely. His career playoffs stats read 10.9 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.4 steals. Besides Horry, I’ll throw a Chauncey Billups comparison in the mix. Billups won an NBA Finals MVP with the Detroit Pistons back in the 2003-04 season, he had a much more consistent playoffs as a whole, has more accolades and to me he’s not a sure fire Hall of Famer, but his career has more points that would get him in where as Iguodala is a trendy topic, but if you dig for the substance it isn’t there.
Enjoy the three rings and possibly more, but just like when LeBron James chased him down for that historical block, Iggy isn’t being denied!
