Philadelphia 76ers Fans Should Be Eternally Greatful to Matt Geiger #nba #sixers #alleniverson
This upcoming NBA season, the Sixers are going to be wearing throwback jerseys as their city edition jerseys. And this is to commemorate the 25 season anniversary in which the last time this team wore the Eastern Conference champs and made it to the NBA finals. As Sixers fans, it is customary for us to thank Allen Iverson for his MVP season and taking his team all the way to the finals. But there’s one other person who we should really be thanking. It’s actually this guy, Matt Guyger, who we should be thanking. If you don’t know Matt Guyger, he was a 10-year vet who primarily played center and he was mainly a backup for the majority of his career. He was okay but serviceable. By the year 2000, he was in Philadelphia playing for the Sixers and he was teammates with Allen Iverson. If you know anything about Allen Iverson, you know that he was a bit of a hothead and he had a volatile relationship with his head coach Larry Brown. In the front office, they were sick of Iverson’s antics and they were fed up with him. Sixers were so fed up with him that there was a deal in place to trade Iverson to the Pistons in the 2000 off seasonason. Yeah, that would have been the most Sixers thing ever to trade a guy who was two years removed for a scoring title who finished second in scoring the season prior. This would have been like the modern-day version of the Charles Barkley to Phoenix trade. Thankfully, that never happened because of Matt Guyger. There was a four team trade in place in which the Sixers were supposed to get Eddie Jones, Glenn Rice, Jerome Williams, and Dale Ellis. The Pistons were supposed to get Iverson and Matt Guyger. The Charlotte Hornets were supposed to get Jerry Stackhouse, Christian Lightner, and Travis Knight. And the Lakers were supposed to get Anthony Mason, Tony Cuck, Coach, and Todd Fuller. But that whole trade fell through because Matt Guyger refused to go to Detroit because he didn’t want to wave his contract clause. So all of this right here never happened. Because that never happened, the Sixers kept Iverson and Guyger. Iverson goes on to win the MVP in 20201. The Sixers become Eastern Conference champs and they make it to the NBA Finals. We also never would have gotten one of the most iconic moments in NBA Finals history. So, thank you Matt Guyger for not wanting to go to Detroit. I don’t blame you.
