“He would dribble around for 20 seconds and then throw you a grenade” - Brian Shaw explains Larry Brown’s decision to move Allen Iverson from point guard to shooting guard

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Allen Iverson is one of the most talented players in NBA history, but his journey to stardom didn’t come without some bumps in the road. After winning Rookie of the Year in 1997, Iverson struggled with his consistency on offense in his sophomore campaign.

The balance of finding your own shots while creating looks for other teammates is a difficult task for point guards, and it’s one Iverson struggled with. According to Brian Shaw, that was the main reason why Larry Brown made a big midseason change involving Iverson.

Brian Shaw reveals why Larry Brown made this big Iverson decision

Shaw was picked up by the Philadelphia 76ers in a trade midway through the 1997-98 campaign to help in Philly’s backcourt. Little did he know that he would end up playing a role in displacing Iverson from the point guard position.

Iverson struggled to get his teammates the ball on offense, and Brown knew it was time for a change. As a result, he opted to move Iverson to shooting guard in an effort to get the offense to flow more freely while giving Shaw and Eric Snow the controls at the point guard position.

“I played half a season for the Sixers in ‘97, the year that Larry Brown moved Iverson from the one to the two,” Brian Shaw said on Podcast P Presented by Wave Sports + Entertainment. “Eric Snow and I were the point guards on that team, and the reason why he did that is because he would dribble around for 20 seconds trying to get his shot off and then throw you a grenade in the last two-to-four seconds because he couldn’t get his shot off.”

“Larry Brown was like ‘You know what, we gonna take him off the ball and at least initiate the offense, it started over here and then bring it back to him and let him do his thing,” Shaw added.

Larry Brown’s risky decision helped Allen Iverson grow into a superstar

Making this sort of decision, especially midway through the season, was extremely risky for Brown. Iverson is known to be a big personality, so there was a chance that telling him he was going to have less of the ball in his hands could have backfired.

Instead, it propelled Iverson to the heights he couldn’t hit at the point guard position. While the team moved on from Shaw after the season, Iverson stayed at shooting guard after his departure and quickly blossomed into a superstar.

Iverson would go on to lead the league in scoring for the 1998-99 campaign, and he would do so three more times before he left the Sixers. If he hadn’t been moved to shooting guard, none of this may have ended up being possible for him.

While A.I. still had the ball in his hands quite a bit, limiting his playmaking responsibilities ended up helping him flourish as a scorer. So inadvertently, Shaw’s short stint with Philadelphia may have helped play a massive role in Iverson’s development into a superstar.