For most Sixers fans under the age of 40, the glory days of the Philadelphia 76ers were during the Allen Iverson era. Iverson gave it his all every single night on the floor, had a magnetic personality, and embodied what the city of Philadelphia is all about. He revolutionized the NBA in more ways than he is credited for and his crowning achievement came when he took an overperforming Sixers roster to the NBA Finals in the 2000-01 season and won NBA MVP along the way.
With all that Iverson was, much of his success is more impressive when you consider some of the players that he shared the court with. What follows is a list of the worst Sixers starters during the Iverson era. As a note, the criteria used for starters in this list is if the player started at least 20 games during a season with the Sixers. First up, John Salmons.
John Salmons (2003-04)
Salmons overlapped with Iverson for a part of four seasons in the years following the Sixers NBA Championship run in the 2000-01 season. During his 13-year NBA career, Salmons played for 6 different teams and was a starter at the majority of those stops.
The Philadelphia 76ers acquired Salmons via draft night trade in 2002 from the San Antonio Spurs. As a young player on a team that had tasted recent success, it was not a surprise that Salmons’ minutes were limited. However, in his second season with the team, he found himself starting 24 games in the 2003-04 season.
The contributions of Salmons were relatively nondescript as he only averaged 5.8 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 1.7 assists for the Sixers. Fortunately for Salmons, his career would flourish years down the line when he became a 20-point-per-game scorer for the Milwaukee Bucks. Unfortunately, his dismal play in Philadelphia has him on this list.
Willie Green (2004-05)
Before Willie Green embarked on his coaching career, culminating with currently being the head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans, he was a shooting guard in the NBA. There were not many expectations for Green coming into the league in 2003, following a four-year college career at Detroit Mercy. The Sixers again, similar to Salmons, traded for Green’s rights on draft night and brought him to Philly to begin his career.
The draft-day trade is not the only similarity that Green and Salmons share. Both players were likely forced into a starting lineup in the league before they were ready which led to an underperformance and included them as worst starters alongside Iverson.
Green started 21 games in his second season with the Sixers during the 2004-2005 season. In his time on the court, he averaged 7.7 points, 2.3 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game. For a young player yet to reach his prime, this could be considered a promising start when thrust into the starting lineup. In this case, though, the Sixers were still chasing the elusive success from four years prior and they limped into the playoffs for an early-round exit.
It is important to mention, Green was one of the most reliable starters for the Sixers in the 2006 and 2007 seasons having quality year-over-year growth. Yet that was after Iverson left the team and based on our starter criteria, his 2004 season was among the worst for players considered starters during this period.
Michael Cage (1996-97)
Cage was a first-round draft pick in the 1984 NBA Draft with high expectations coming off of back-to-back WAC Players of the Year at San Diego State. He was a dominant front-court force who impressed early with the Los Angeles Clippers. In just his third year in the league, he averaged a career-high 15.7 points and added 11.5 rebounds as well. This was the start of a four-year stretch where Cage would border a double-double.
During the 1987-88 NBA season, Cage was the NBA rebounding leader with an impressive 13 rebounds per game, including over 5 per on the offensive glass. If Cage had been a member of the Philadelphia 76ers during the first half of his NBA career, he would have been far from consideration for this list, but unfortunately for his sake that is not the case.
By the time Cage arrived in Philadelphia, he was entering his 13th season in the NBA and had seen a steady decline in his points and rebounding production for the past five to six seasons. It is uncertain what the Sixers were hoping to get out of Cage at this point in his career, but the team was coming off an 18-64 record the year before.
The 1996-97 season was Allen Iverson’s first year in the NBA and he started alongside Cage in 24 games that season. Cage averaged a measly 1.8 points and 3.9 rebounds for the Sixers and his career was all but over by this time. The Sixers did not improve much, finishing with a four-game improvement over the prior year for a 22-60 record. The good news for the franchise was their fortunes were on the verge of a drastic positive shift.
Eric Montross (1997-98)
The highest-drafted player on this list is Eric Montross who was the 9th overall pick in the 1994 NBA Draft by the Boston Celtics. If you are unfamiliar with Montross and his time with the Sixers, you can be forgiven as he only wore the team’s jersey for 26 games in his career.
By the time the 1997-98 season came around, it was abundantly clear that Allen Iverson was going to be a superstar in this league and the Sixers front office was working endlessly to try and find the right pieces to build around their athletic and versatile guard. During this season, the Sixers suited up 22 different players to play alongside Iverson and Montross was one of them.
Unfortunately for Montross, he was never able to get comfortable enough with a team to become the player many expected coming out of North Carolina. Montross had his career-high scoring average in his rookie season, 10 points per game, but being a constant trade piece stunted his career. Throughout his third and fourth seasons in the NBA, he played for 6(!) different teams, the Sixers being one of them.
In the 20 games he started for Philadelphia, he had averages of 3.4 points and 4.6 rebounds before it was determined that he was not going to be a part of the organization’s plans. A notable theme in this article is the recurrence of big men. By the time the Sixers landed on Dikembe Mutombo, they were positive this was the type of center that could play in concert with the ball-dominant Iverson.
Corie Blount (2001-02)
The penultimate worst starter during the Iverson era is Corie Blount. Blount played for seven teams in his 11-year career but was never a player of note on any team he played for. His career-high averages were 6.8 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 1.3 assists, which all came in separate seasons. Blount managed to extend his career by being a savvy veteran that accepted his bench role and minimal playing time.
Blount started a whopping 77 games of his total 644 in the NBA, and a shocking team high of 21 of those were for the Philadelphia 76ers. Starting Blount more than any other team is not necessarily the thing you want to be noted for if you are the Sixers, but hey here we are.
Those 21 games were in the 2001-02 season, which immediately followed the team’s first NBA Finals appearance in 18 long years (unfortunately the current Finals drought is even longer). Blount’s 3.6 points and 5.1 rebounds were undoubtedly a reason that he only stayed in Philly for one season. The season following a title run is naturally going to be difficult, but having Iverson in and out of the lineup due to injury and starting 12 different players is going to make it even more difficult.
Unlike many of the other players prior on this list, Blount did not have success outside of Philadelphia. His play with the Sixers was representative of the rest of his career in the league, but he found a way to extend his playing time beyond what should have been expected.
Matt Geiger (1999-00)
Capping off the list as the worst starter during Iverson’s tenure in Philadelphia is Matt Geiger, perfectly personified in the photo above. Geiger had a relatively quiet 10-year NBA career where he played for the Miami Heat, and Charlotte Hornets, and ended his career with the Sixers from 1998-2002.
Geiger’s best year with the Sixers was 1998-99 when he averaged 13.5 points, and 7.2 rebounds per game as a consistent starter. He would, unfortunately, battle injuries that would force him to retire in 2002, but it was a constant decline from the time he put on a Sixers jersey. In the year in question, he started 20 games alongside Iverson and averaged 9 points and 6 rebounds, respectively per game, and was far from the big man the Sixers were looking to pair with AI to make a deep title run.
Now, in some respects, it could be argued that Geiger should be considered the best starter to ever grace the floor with Iverson because Giger is the unequivocal reason that AI remained in Philly during the offseason of 2000. Geiger refused to waive a trade kicker in his contract that shut down a trade sending AI to the Detroit Pistons.
Everyone knows what happened less than 12 months later. Iverson won the NBA MVP award, and led the Sixers to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1983! All credit to Geiger right? Wrong. Look, Geiger is known for keeping Iverson in Philly which changed the trajectory of both Iverson and the Sixers franchise for years to come.
It is difficult to credit injuries for a player being a disappointment, but the Sixers were also paying Geiger $50+ million, which was absurd for the production he was giving the team. That is a big reason why Geiger tops (or bottoms) off this list.
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