Allen Iverson

A cartridge I often return to without a clear explanation is the first match I watched in Iversona. In 1996, Elite Eight, so far to Final Foura, met UMass and Georgetown in Atlanta. On one bench, John Calipari, on the other legendary John Thompson. For UMass he played Marcus Camby. For Gtown, except for Iverson, there were also Othello Harrington and Jerome "Junkyard Dog" Williams.

By the time I heard about Iverson stories from some of the players and trainers ... it's legendary: "There's one little ...." Iverson was really that, little one. Slender hands and legs that seemed to be 90% of his body. The hull was almost gone. A hairdress that met the standards of John Thompson, who never hesitated to physically deal with his players if things do not work as he imagined.

Thompson for a long time in college basketball represented an African American population. One of the first trainers of "other" skin color. The trainer who mostly recruited the dominant centers (Ewing, Mourning, Mutombo) brought one tiny beast, the most talented of all, Allen Iverson.

Georgetown was easily defeated in that match against UMass. Iverson was a bad shot, but again, from every move he made an incredible power. In one attack, AI crashed Carmel Traviesa from left-hand to right, flung himself into a racket, jumped on two legs and slammed beside Camby, who was not even able to raise his hand.

From this perspective, it remains one of my favorite memories of Iverson. No jersey stood for him as the dark Georgetown, under which a sleeveless shirt was necessarily underneath. If he could somehow have played his entire career for Hoyase, I think it would be an ideal match. After the end of the season, Thompson briefly said, "His place is in the NBA, I have nothing more to learn about basketball".

To this day, Thompson remains the coach who had the most impact on Iverson, the others could not reach his head, they were not even close. He was and remains an instinct player. Nothing in his game made you think of "This is a schoolgirl," and he was just as good again. He did not need the action, or he may have followed one or two movements, the rest he created himself, and always himself, very often neglecting the rest of the five, where no one had the courage to object to him for the non-sonorous shadow.

He could have been 180cm high, but his person threw a shadow at everything. He was always on the field more than life, and that's all. Viewers, coaches, opponents, teammates. How powerful he was on TV, he was 1,000 times more powerful to watch live. His ability to come to terms regardless of how much the defense was narrow and how many players sent for help is simply unaware. Iverson is probably the best player in the modern history of the NBA. We thought that Tim Haraway's front change was the best and fastest ever, but then Al appeared, and everything else was not well enough.

How many times did we break up the conversation with a sentence: "Tonight's transfer to Philadelphia, I'm going to watch Iverson" and no additional questions were asked ...

One of the famous stories of his growing up includes the apartment he lived in, where the sewer pipes soaked the parquet floor. "I will never forget the stench of my legs, which made me succeed".

And that's why the story of Iverson is so unusual. After this quote, you would have thought that AI had accumulated from training and hard work, but he did not ... Nobody achieved more in basketball with less training than Allen Iverson. He succeeded in pure talent and heart. Nothing else. Not even a huge amount of self-destructivity could stop it on its way to the stars. Most of us met the players who justified their failure by bad company and night outs. "Eh, if I had more training ... who knows what would be ..." Iverson made every possible training in the wide arena, the gym was not interested in scouting ? It's just a good joke ... He sprayed up to five or six in the morning, drowned marijuana wagons, disappeared for several days, hanged out with mildly dull snouts, slept where he arrived and was once again one of the best archers in basketball history. He was so good.

At one point there was this limit that the public appeal was sent by Fat Joe's repertoire: "I'm worried about Ala. This guy does not care who he hangs out and what houses he sleeps. It's not good for his health."

Imagine how someone lives, when rehearsing, from all people, appealing to get in line. Larry Brown banged his head in the wall, but even he, known for his coaching rigidity and principles, was aware that any attempt to impose attitudes led to ruin. A friend who at the time had Browne's permission to follow the Sixers trainings and meetings was kneeling that Iverson did not appear at a pilot training session that was scheduled in the morning hours, and he closely followed the team for a good year. Again, what to say to a man who played his MVP season with 24 different injuries, who played the playoffs in which he led the team to the final played with 11 injuries hock, knee, hip, foot and shoulders among others ...

Look, from the perspective of advanced statistics it is not at all difficult to portray Iveron as a bad shooter, which did not have too much resonance in the game and that was prone to lost balls and forcing, but I would never do that in my life. Simply Iverson as a person and player meant too much to basketball lovers. Everything needs to be put in a certain context, so when you have some sort of potions these arguments today, remember that most important test. Watching a match and a particular player. Never, it was never boring to watch Iverson. He was able to force someone who does not follow basketball to say "What is this?"

You always got everything from Iveron. Regardless whether the night before he shaken two bottles of cognacs and lay at dawn, Iverson flew across the field, found unrealistic corners for penetration, pointing over the guds that were fired by him in the parquet floor, breaking his wrists against the opposing bastards, languishing sighs in all the halls in to which he played. It was visually stunning and that's what no statistics can cover. At the end of the day, his appearance also meant more than basketball. His braids became a fashion hit, his shooter sleeve became a necessary piece of equipment in the NBA.

He was the first NBA player to come in for NFL shirts, wear scarves around his head, jeans at half-backs and kilograms of platinum around his neck. It was not a fiddle that we often recognize with NBA stars. It was simply him. And only he could bring out that style that went well with his field game.

We often hear that Michael Jordan would throw 40 at the current rules ... I wonder how much Iverson could be injected and who could keep him today when a hand-check on external positions is banned and when you can open a racket with a defensive rule three seconds ...

By numbers, Iverson should be a safe choice for the Hall of Fame. In his career he scored more than 24,000 points, his average of 26.7 is the fourth best ever. In the play-off, he scored 29.7 points per game, and Michael Jordan was the only one from him. Four times the AI ​​was the best shooter of the league, the MVP league was 2001, 11 times the All Star player, and three times in the top five. Iverson scored 52 points for Vince Carter, 44 Ray Allen and 48 Kobe Bryant. During his career, AI in direct contests went against Jordan, Kobe, T-Mac, Carter, Allen, Richmond, Payton, Stockton, Sprewella, Houston, Hardaway, against the best bugs of his era and at one point broke them all. Look at the games and everything will be clear to you.
Allen Iverson was not afraid of anyone or anything in the field. It's enough for me ...