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Allen Iverson was the first and last of his kind. On and off the court. AI was as unique as you can get.
You were always confident enough. to play your game your way, to dress your way. I'm just, I'm fine with being me.
Like, when I die and I come back, I want to be Adam Navis. But at the same time, he's the most influential hooper of all time. Every guard since has had at least a touch of AI in their game, especially when it comes down to their ball handling. So we'll break down AI's ball handling in a way that's never been done before. Stay with me.
So if anyone has ever had the ball on a string, it's AI. And this is for a reason. He's so comfortable with that ball outside of his body.
And this opens up so much. Defenders are always taught to not follow the ball while defending on ball, but it's human nature. When you see the ball move in ways that no one else can manipulate it, at some point you're going to get shifted out of place.
Most times in an... embarrassing manner. You'll also consistently see AI breaking defenders off with snatches, you know, dropping defenders like almost no one else can. And this starts with one thing, getting that defender out of control.
You hear a lot of AI's competitors talk about how quick he was, and that's why he was so hard to guard. And it's true, he was so quick not only with that first step, but also laterally, and with his decelerations. that it was easier for him to get an advantage on his defenders. But a lot of players are quick.
It's how you take advantage of it. So when a defender feels like they're being beat off the dribble, most of the times their footwork suddenly becomes rushed, and their balance suffers as a result. A.I.
knew this, and even if he had to give a little bit of a push with the shoulder, or even a discreet one with the hand, he knows his defender is vulnerable. So why not take advantage? And A.I.
is one of the best ever at putting his shoulders to use. There are a ton of ways to sell moves, but the shoulders are probably the most underused, especially by younger players. Naturally, dropping the shoulders is an acceleration position, which signals to the defender that they'll have to simultaneously accelerate to stay in front of that ball handler.
So when AI drops that inside shoulder and then decelerates or changes direction, the defender is likely to bite and slide with that move. Iverson also had the best bait moves of all time. moves that set up that defender in an iso situation, and tested out how the defender will react.
Probably the best example of this is the iconic cross on Michael Jordan. So here, naturally, AI gives Jordan a first crossover to see how he's going to react. He sees that he shifts a little bit, so he knows that on the next one, he'll create more than enough separation for a jumper.
And this is also mental, and when AI is sizing up that defender using those speed changes and bait moves, the defender will get in their own head. At that point, it's over for him. AI's timing and body positioning on his moves were also very unorthodox, but in a good way. The way he decelerated, the way he turned his body, etc.
It just didn't look as predetermined as most players, which is honestly the best way to do it. And this comes from years of just hooping and learning to react. And a lot of this is subconsciously based on getting the defender in the position that he wants him.
For example, he's using fakes here, changing speeds, using unique footwork. And then once the defender gets his feet turned towards the baseline, it's over. And I'll talk more about this a little bit later in the video, but AI shifts his weight so well, which helps him sell his moves.
Just like the shoulder and the ball, defenders instinctively follow where you shift your weight to. And as a result, you can use it to shift them around once you get it down. Now I've talked about AI's outside of body ball control, but if he didn't have to hang that ball, most of the time he would keep that ball closed and react to what the defender gives him. Like here, he sees that Wallace's momentum is way out of control, and simply quickly counters and goes by. Same thing here.
And a lot of these tighter moves are reaction based. Mostly because AI is one of the best ever at instinctively seeing or feeling his defender beat to a spot, then making that counter and most impressively, maintaining control of the ball. Another thing that sets up AI for success in terms of his ball handling is being able to shoot off the dribble.
He only shot 31% from three in his career, but I'd be willing to bet that a strong majority of those were off the dribble or at least in an ice so situation like it and while his defenders never had to suffocate him from shooting they could never play fully off and this gives them much less time to react to ai's quick moves and obviously we cannot forget about the crossover the one that's been argued over and over again change rules and more i'll do a more in-depth video on this soon but there are a few basic keys to it that i'll say right now so first is having that ball control outside the body that i talked about without this this crossover is not possible at all Because he controls it so well outside of his frame, he can really get that ball into a position that no defender has ever had to deal with before. Then with that ability to shift the weight, he takes a big step out, shifts his weight, then uses the ball as a final touch before yanking back into that crossover. Too deadly.
And then finally watch how much ground he covers as he explodes out of that crossover. Or really any move. There's not much of a point of shifting defenders out of place if you can't create that separation to get downhill or into a shot.
But AI made sure that was never the case. Like right here he gets out of that crossover and gets 24 feet with no extra dribbles. That's impressive.
So we'll have a lot more on AI in the future, crossover breakdowns etc. But thanks for watching. Stay tuned for two new videos every week. Follow me on Instagram and make sure to subscribe and share the movement.