... one of the most divisive, and yet compelling, athletes of my lifetime.
There's a middle ground here, which seems to be impossible for some of you acknowledge. The one piece of the Iverson Mythology that has always bugged me is that it's ok to jack up bad shots and take chances on defense because he plays hard. I've written this many times here, and but I will repeat it again. You don't get extra credit for doing what you're supposed to do in life. Frankly, our standards shouldn't be that low. It reminds me of the Chris Rock joke where he says he laughs when he hears brothas occasionally boast that they're good guys because, "I ain't never been to jail." or "I take care of my kids."
Rock's response is, "N---a, you ain't SUPPOSED to have been to jail. And you SUPPOSED to take care of your kids!"
You don't get extra credit for doing what you're supposed to do in life. It's like asking a judge for leniency on a parking ticket because "I always pay my taxes." Um, yeah. So? If the market dictates that Allen Iverson should be paid $66 million, the least he can do is play hard every night. Which he does. So that's admirable, but it doesn't excuse everything, as some Iverson apologists would like you to believe.
Now all that said, the whole "we talking 'bout practice" rant is, unfortunately, used by far too many people as Example A of why they hate him. Far too many people use it as an opportunity to summarize everything that's wrong with the modern athlete. The image of him sitting behind the table complaining about working hard, braids and tattoos in full display, plays into far too many stereotypes. Especially, sorry to say it, the stereotypes older white males have about this current generation of black athletes. When you think about it, Iverson was essentially saying he didn't see the logic in having to run ****ing wind sprints for a control freak like Larry Brown when he was already getting the **** kicked out of him on a nightly basis, and that's certainly something I can understand. Brown needed a scapegoat for why things were going bad in Philly, so he brought up the fact that Iverson's teammates didn't practice enough with him, serving up Iverson to the blood-thirsty, angry, finger-pointers in order to deflect blame from himself and maintain the myth of the Coach Who Plays The Right Way. Bull****. I wouldn't want to run the three-man-weave and pass the ball to Eric Snow either if I were AI.
Think about this: Shaq probably hasn't gone hard in practice in five to eight years, and in LA, he was arguably more selfish than Iverson. Ran off coaches, sucked in big moments, bitched when he wasn't getting the ball, bitched about his teammates not being good enough prior to Kobe's arrival, won some championships, then basically sabotaged that team even though he was old, lazy and fat because he couldn't handle the fact that he wasn't the Alpha Dog. He coasted through games, wouldn't play defense if he wasn't getting his touches ("Don't ask the Big Dog to guard the house if he's not being fed"), didn't rebound, didn't work on his free throws because it was beneath him, and yet he remained, essentially, everyone's darling in the media.
The easy storyline went like this (especially after Shaq starting winning everything):
Shaq = funny, good guy, good teammate, plays his way into shape, but that's ok.
Iverson = too hip hop, too selfish, malcontent, won't practice, but I guess he plays hard.
I'd still take Allen Iverson on my team. I think Phil Jackson could make Iverson a winner. Some other coaches too. Pat Reily maybe. He and Garnett playing together would be very interesting. Iverson has his flaws, both as a basketball player and as a human being, but let's not get carried away pretending Larry, Magic and Michael did everything right their entire careers and erase all their flaws simply because they won titles, had far more talent around them, and had far greater physical gifts. Magic Johnson remains my favorite player of all time, but he ran off a coach, punked Norm Nixon (to the point where the Lakers had to get rid of him), and humped anything that moved for a decade in LA. Bird had a kid out of wedlock, couldn't stay healthy (despite taking considerably less punishment that AI) and was one of the biggest whiners of all time. Jordan was a degenerate gambler who punched Steve Kerr in the face, boned legions of chubby white girls behind his wife's back, casually dismissed inner city violence over Air Jordans while profiting off of slave labor in Asia.
I have a hard time pretending that Iverson is the anti-Christ simply because he sometimes goes 9-of-30 and half-asses it in practice the next day.
