To say that four-time scoring champion, former NBA Most Valuable Player, and future Hall-of-Famer Allen Iverson has had a rough winter would be a massive understatement.
It all began in mid-November when Iverson and the Memphis Grizzlies agreed to terminate his contract. The team was not a good fit for Iverson from the beginning and many people questioned how and why he wound up there in the first place.
A week after he left the Grizzlies, Iverson announced his retirement from the NBA. The controversial 6-foot combo guard best known for his stint on the Philadelphia 76ers and a classic press conference was going to hang up his gym shoes for good.
The retirement was brief.
Just over a week later, Iverson signed a free-agent deal with the Sixers, the team that put him on the map and made him a national icon. He was welcomed back to the "City of Brotherly Love" with open arms and fans began to pack the Wachovia Center again to watch one of the greatest players in the team's history take the court again.
This lasted only 25 games, when Iverson took a leave of absence from the team to be with his sick 4-year-old daughter, eventually leading to the Sixers announcing on March 2 that he would not return for the rest of the season.
All of these events lead up to the story that Philadelphia Inquirer writer Stephen A. Smith wrote informing the world that Allen Iverson has gambling and alcohol problems. In the story, he said that the only two people who could save him from his free fall were two former coaches, perhaps the two people who know him best: Larry Brown, who coached him on the Sixers, and John Thompson, his coach at Georgetown.
A story by Chris Broussard for ESPN published on March 23 says that NBA commissioner David Stern and Thompson have both reached out to Iverson to express their concern since Smith's article was published.
At this stage in Iverson's life, he needs to take care of his health and personal life before he can even think about playing basketball again. While 34 might not seem like an old age to most people, it sure is for a player who has made a living sacrificing his body night after night on the basketball court.
Will Allen Iverson be most remembered for his downfall? Will he be remembered for the many years where he was one of the most exciting basketball players to watch in the world?
Basketball fans who have had the privilege of watching him since he was drafted in '96 will likely hope for the latter because of all the great things he has brought to the game throughout his career.
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Iverson's one of my favorite all-time players, and I'm a New Yorker. He is second only to Michael Jordan in how much he changed the culture of the game. He's the reason that Jay-Z and Usher own parts of teams. It's really sad seeing something like this happen to such an important person in the sport's history, but it seems like it was inevitable with his lifestyle. One thing no one can ever take away from him is how devoted he was to his family, which is rare in this day and age (cough, Antonio Cromartie, cough)
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