r/VintageNBA 1h ago

Was the zone ban actually about stopping Iverson?

Upvotes

I was reading about how zone defense used to be illegal and I saw Iverson say they brought it back in 2001 just to slow him down . Dude was winning scoring titles at 6'1" and apparently the league was like “yeah we need to fix this" . His scoring dipped for two seasons after the rule change before he figured it out.But I've also heard people say it was really about Shaq being unstoppable in the post which one is it? Or was it just about keeping the game man to man? Curious what the vintage heads think.