On March 12, 1997, the Philadelphia 76ers crowd sprung to its feet, cheering wildly with anticipation.
Rookie Allen Iverson preened at the top of the key behind the three-point circle, sizing up his childhood idol, Michael Jordan. As Jordan crouched in his defensive stance, Iverson dribbled in place, then crossed him left—“a little cross, to see if he would bite,” AI would explain later—then whipped the ball between his legs and crossed over again, hard, as MJ, the game’s greatest player, lunged at him in vain. Iverson stepped around the off-balance Jordan, sank the jumper, and the jubilant 76ers fans celebrated as though they had just won the NBA championship.
In reality, Philadelphia eked out only 22 victories that season, but Iverson, at barely 6' and 165 pounds, captivated the city with his fearless drives to the basket, his theatrical clutch shooting, and that crossover, which reduced legends to mere basketball mortals.
“I would challenge any basketball historian to come up with five guys who were greater warriors in NBA history than Allen Iverson,” said Stephen A. Smith, who covered Iverson for the Philadelphia Inquirer. “And it wasn’t just because of his performance on the court. Allen Iverson had to fight every day, mentally or emotionally. One minute it was with society, another minute it was with coach Larry Brown, another minute it was with a teammate, another minute it was with friends and loved ones, another minute it was the media, and it circulated time and time and time again.”
Iverson had led Bethel High School in Virginia to state championships in both football (as quarterback) and basketball (as point guard) and was one of the most hotly recruited athletes in the country until a racially charged melee at a bowling alley on Valentine’s Day 1993 landed him in the Newport News City Farm correctional facility. Although he was pardoned by Governor Douglas Wilder and released after four months, all the scholarship offers except one had vanished.
“There was no choice but Georgetown,” Iverson said. “I got in a situation, and my mom went up to coach [John Thompson] and asked him to save my life, and that’s basically what he did.”
Iverson joined the NBA as the No. 1 overall pick in 1996. He grew out his hair and had it braided into cornrows, added numerous tattoos over the course of his career, and became the face of the hip-hop generation—a look that some fans, and sponsors, struggled to embrace.
“I’m pretty sure I rubbed a lot of people the wrong way in the beginning,” Iverson said. “I didn’t do anything to try to hurt anybody or disrespect anybody. I was just being me. I got cornrows because I was sick of [barbers] messin’ my hair up on the road. I figured, ‘If I get cornrows, I don’t have to worry about that.’ But people thought that I was doing it to be some gangsta tough guy.”
David Stern said Iverson mirrored society’s disposition. “There’s music, there’s fashion, motion pictures, and sports,” Stern said. “Those are the four things that reflect culture and change attitudes. So if Allen Iverson wears his pants down to his ankles, then kids are wearing their pants down to their ankles. If somebody appears in a hat after a championship game with a tag hanging down, then the kids are wearing their hats that way. If two guys hug after the game, it’s, ‘Oh my God, a white player and a black player hugged each other.’ Of course they hugged each other—they’re teammates. That has a huge impact on society.”
And yet the NBA initially resisted AI’s influence. Stern instituted a dress code that Iverson claimed specifically targeted him. When Hoop magazine (a league publication) put Iverson on the cover in 2000, they airbrushed his tattoos.
“The tats were something that people weren’t used to, so it was odd to them,” Iverson said. “Everybody in the world has tattoos now. It’s all right because I did it, and people accept it now. They know that just because somebody got a tattoo don’t mean that they’re some bad guy.”
In his only Finals appearance, Iverson shocked Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, and the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 1 of the 2001 Finals by dropping 48 points and leading the Sixers to a 107–101 overtime victory. L.A. would go on to win in five games, but not before AI’s signature crossover grew in stature, this time with Tyronn Lue as the victim. As Iverson unleashed his murderous move, Lue fell, the shot swished through, and AI pointedly stepped over Lue as he turned up court.
“When your imagination’s running wild, you figure out different ways to take [the crossover] to a different level,” Iverson said. “When I crossed up Jordan, people thought it was something that I planned. I didn’t—it was just a reaction.”
Iverson’s nomadic final seasons included stops in Denver, Detroit, Memphis, back to Philly, and Turkey. Along the way, he was involved in a bar brawl and domestic disturbances, was banned from casinos in Atlantic City, and struggled with alcohol and financial woes.
Smith believes the bowling alley incident forever shaped Iverson. “The moment you imprisoned Allen Iverson, you forever imprisoned him. Every day he wakes up, he is incarcerated, because there’s somebody in his face, in his heart, in his spirit, in his thoughts, that’s telling him what he can do, when to do it, how to do it,” Smith said. “So he walks around with these battles.”
“I’ve been defending myself my whole life,” Iverson said. “I’ve gotta have rhino skin and deal with it.”