Much like Allen Iverson, two-time All-Star Stephon Marbury was also considered as one of the best point guards of his time. According to Marbury's former Minnesota Timberwolves teammate Tom Gugliotta, Marbury actually considered Iverson to be his top adversary.
Gugliotta, who played with Marbury for two years in Minnesota between 1996 and 1998, recently sat down with Patrick Reusse of Star Tribune. The former All-Star shared his thoughts on Marubry's alleged rivalry with Iverson.
“Steph looked at Allen Iverson as his rival, even if no one else did,” he said. “Some nights, Steph passed. Other nights, he tried to be Iverson.”
I'm not sure Gugliotta is 100 percent correct here when he said that nobody else saw Iverson as a rival. In his prime, Iverson could easily drop 30 points on any given night. If this doesn't put a target on one's back then I no longer know what else will. After all, anyone tasked to guard Iverson surely would have done anything in their power to try and stop the 6-foot scoring machine.
Perhaps what Gugliotta was trying to say is that Marbury became overly obsessive with what Iverson had going on. Then again, this would be understandable given the fact that Stephon Marbury was motivated to establish himself as the top point guard in the league. Naturally, the only way he could do this is if he constantly did one better than Iverson.
At the end of the day, both Marbury and Iverson are still two of the best players of all time. Although Marbury may have not reached the same heights as Iverson did, he is still great in his own right.
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