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"FacebookPinterest\n\nIf a great drama has five parts\u2014conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement\u2014then Allen Iverson is hovering somewhere around climax. After ten brilliant, frustrating seasons in Philadelphia, The Answer has bet all his chips on one hand\u2014the young, promising Denver Nuggets\u2014and the question is: Will he complete Denver's rise from obscurity, bringing rings and ticker tape to the High Plains, or was this season's blockbuster trade\u2014which famously paired him with young gun Carmelo Anthony\u2014the last big dramatic twist before his thirty-one-year-old body finally succumbs?\n\nGQ sent seven reporters to chart Iverson's story in the words of those who know him best. We conducted over fifty interviews with teammates, coaches, friends, and the woman who flies out from New Jersey to arrange his cornrows. We can't say if he's on the rise or the fall, but one thing is for sure: He's had a hell of a life.\n\nAllen Iverson: Football was my first love. It was my dream to play in the NFL. I didn't start playing basketball until I was 8 years old. One day my mom told my coach to come and bring me to basketball practice. I cried all the way out the door.\n\nGary Moore (Iverson's manager and former youth-league football coach): Guess what? He's not even playing his best sport. He's probably the best football player I've ever seen. And I've seen Deion Sanders, Gale Sayers, Sweetness, John Elway.\n\nDennis Kozlowski (ex-football coach, Bethel High School, Hampton, Virginia): In high school, he wasn't big as a minute\u2014five six, five seven, 145 pounds\u2014but he was a Deion type of player, an absolute wonder returning kicks. As a safety, he still holds the state record with five interceptions in one game. As a quarterback, he could throw the ball at least seventy yards in the air.\n\nRick Reilly (writer, Sports Illustrated): After he'd begun playing with the Sirs, I drove with him one day in his black Mercedes to a Philadelphia Eagles practice. He threw a bunch of beautiful passes\u2014he could throw it fifty yards on the button\u2014and ran this gorgeous route. The coach was like, \"My God, I'll sign him right now.\"\n\nIverson: Every school in the country recruited me for football and basketball. But then events happened in my life, and I wasn't able to do that.\n\nJim Spencer (columnist, Denver Post; formerly with the Hampton Roads Daily Press): On Valentine's Day 1993, Iverson was with some friends at a bowling alley in a middle-class, racially mid neighborhood. A group of white guys was there. People were drinking beer. One of the black guys claimed that one of the white guys called him the N-word. A fight broke out. There were broken bones, and people were beaten unconscious. A young white woman was hit in the head with a chair, cut so badly she had to get stitches. There was controversy over whether Iverson had flung that chair.\n\nDavid Teel (columnist, the Hampton Roads Daily Press): He was eventually found guilty of \"maiming by mob,\" which was a felony. This was a statute that in the cruelest of ironies was put on the books to prevent lynchings. He was sentenced to fifteen years. Ten suspended. Five years in prison. He was 17 years old. For a fight!\n\nMoore: Allen was wrongfully accused. He was in the bowling alley when the incident occurred, but he never did anything but get out of there.\n\nTeel: I think that's bullshit. Even some people who love Allen to death don't believe that. Allen and his friends got into a fight with the wrong people, with connected people. In the city prison farm, he lived in a trailer and worked in the bakery.\n\nDwight Riddick (senior pastor, Gethsemane Baptist Church, Newport News, Virginia): The community felt he was being unjustly charged. There were marches, there were rallies. We raised funds to help pay lawyers and get him support.\n\nMoore: Allen wrote to the governor, letting him know that he had not done what he had been accused of and explaining what he would do if given another opportunity.\n\nDouglas Wilder (former governor of Virginia; current mayor, Richmond, Vir-ginia): The law that was used for the conviction was ancient. I couldn't see how that violation, for a juvenile, should result in such a mark being placed on him for life. Four months later, at Christmas, I pardoned him. I caught hell for it. [Iverson's conviction was later overturned.]\n\nJessie Iverson-Bowman (Iverson's aunt): When he first got out, he didn't leave home for a week. He had the expression on his face that he got knowledge while he was in there. The part that made tears come to my eyes, we were sitting in the living room and he didn't speak about things that went on in there. He spoke about what he was going to do next.\n\nIverson: Coach [John] Thompson [of Georgetown] had visited me [in prison], and I'd asked him would he consider taking me in if I was able to get out. Fortunately, he did. They had a football program, and I remember one day asking him how did he feel about me playing football. I don't think you can write it in a magazine, what he said. I didn't think about playing football no more after that.\n\nBrendan Gaughan (former teammate, Georgetown Hoyas): It was my job to guard him in practice. I watched film of him every day. You know, Allen's afraid to have me on a basketball court. I got offered a ten-day contract for the playoffs once just to shut him down. I told them no, that's my buddy.\n\nIverson: He's never gonna shut me down. Better be glad he's not Pinocchio, or he'd have the longest nose in the world.\n\nGaughan: He set the per-game scoring record at Georgetown, then left for the NBA after his sophomore year.\n\nPat Croce (former president and minority owner, Philadelphia 76ers): We had the number one pick in the 1996 draft. There were four candidates, but if I went anywhere\u2014\"Pat! Iverson! Pat! Iverson!\" Everyone wanted us to draft him. I had detectives evaluating his background. The feedback we got on him was that he would require discipline. At the same time, I was looking for someone to fill seats.\n\nBrad Greenberg (former general manager, Philadelphia 76ers; current associate head coach, Virginia Tech): Many players we interviewed had been coached by their agents on what to say. But Allen was genuine. We discussed the fact that he'd had an incident, had some friends that didn't have the kind of future that he had and whose interests might not necessarily be his. He basically said, \"Look, Brad, if I fuck up, it's going to be because I fuck up, not because of someone else.\"\n\nLarry Platt (editor of Philadelphia magazine; Iverson biographer): Growing up, he made a pact with his friends, some of whom had long criminal records: They were going to be rappers, and he was a baller. And whoever made it, the rest were along for the ride. At one point, there were about thirty-five families on the payroll, both relatives and friends.\n\nIverson: Everybody coming at you, picking at you, wanting something from you. Pulling and tugging. That was rough. Not knowing how to handle money, not having known about money your whole life, that was the tough part of it. Eventually, after having it for years, you get used to it.\n\nIverson-Bowman: All the people he was friends with, if they did any little thing for him, they threw it up in his face: \"Man, I looked out for you when you were coming up!\" He hears so many people's problems: \"Man, my lights about to get cut off, they taking my car, can I get a few dollars?\"\n\nIverson: Once I got money, I got the tattoos that I wanted. They started getting addictive. I came in with my own style, looking and dressing like I wanted to.\n\nDave Coskey (former ecutive vice president, Philadelphia 76ers): He wore a suit to the NBA draft. I think that may be the last time I ever saw Allen in a suit.\n\nHenry \"Que\" Gaskins (former global vice president, lifestyle and entertainment division, Reebok): Reebok had been a white, corporate, women's brand. We'd made our run at being number one during the aerobics craze. We felt A.I. could help us. Kids were tired of being told \"Be like Mike.\" They wanted somebody they could relate to, not worship. Allen Iverson was the most authentic athlete of his time. We designed a shoe for him not even knowing if he was leaving school. It was the only shot we had of having the shoe ready at the start of the season.\n\nIverson: That was always a dream of mine, having my own sneaker. It didn't matter what it looked like; that sneaker was going to look good to me. It was my first sneaker. It was perfect. It was mine.\n\nGaskins: In two years, we went from zero to over $200 million. During the first five years, there was not a person on the planet, maybe other than the president, who would not take my phone call. Everyone just wanted to be around him.\n\nLang Whitaker (ecutive editor, SLAM magazine): I think a lot of kids understood that this guy isn't a prepackaged superstar\u2014this is a real, flawed person.\n\nSpencer: One day during his rookie year, I was in the local courthouse looking at some records, and someone said, \"Iverson is in here.\" I went up to this hearing where he was testifying as a character witness for a guy who was very close to his family. The guy was in there on a third-strike charge, possession with intent to distribute. I think it was cocaine. Iverson was telling the judge, \"Please don't put him in jail; I will take care of him.\" That was the people he was around, and that's how loyal he was to them.\n\nTodd Boyd (author, Young, Black, Rich, and Famous): In his rookie year, Allen infamously \"crossed over\" Jordan. At the top of the key, Allen rocked once, twice, and left Jordan standing in the same spot. It was unbelievable. Nobody had seen Jordan get clowned that way in a long time. The greatest player in the game got upstaged by this rookie.\n\nBobbito Garcia (cofounder, Bounce magazine): He had already beaten Jordan on the first dribble, but he brought the ball back and crossed him again. That's something that you see on the street\u2014unnecessary moves to claim dominance.\n\nGaskins: Jordan was talking trash during the game: \"Look, young boy, you have to respect us.\" The Bulls had won championships. Allen said to Jordan, \"I ain't got to respect nobody.\"\n\nIverson: The first time I met Mike was on the court during my rookie year. Mike was my favorite player. I used to draw pictures of him all the time when I was a kid. He's the one that made me want to play basketball. Was I intimidated? Hell no. When I'm on the basketball court, I feel I am the best basketball player there.\n\nGreenberg: He had a stretch during his rookie year when he had five straight forty-point games, yet people were criticizing him: \"He's a one-man show.\" Are you kidding me?\n\nPhil Jasner (reporter, Philadelphia Daily News): They didn't win any of those games. Larry Brown later asked Allen why he shot so much back then, and the response was something on the order of \"Coach, those other guys couldn't play.\"\n\nGreenberg: I don't know if he trusted many people that year. I think he was just trying to figure it all out: \"Why aren't I loved? I'm playing hard, trying to do my best. I want to win. Don't these people see it?\"\n\nCoskey: He wore a do-rag to his Rookie of the Year press conference. There weren't a lot of do-rags around then, ten years ago. The league office expressed some concern.\n\nChris Sheridan (reporter, ESPN): Commissioner Stern had Pat Croce up in his office and said, \"We didn't like seeing A.I. wearing that skull cap at the press conference. Our security people tell us that's a gang thing.\" Croce didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but he said, \"You guys got it all wrong. It was a Reebok skull cap, and it's not a gang thing; it's a fashion thing.\" The league office was real iffy on the image that A.I. was bringing into the league.\n\nPlatt: He was sort of the face of this new hip-hop culture in the NBA. You can't turn on a game and not see what he wrought.\n\nWhitaker: The NBA airbrushed out his neck tattoo on the cover of Hoop, their official magazine.\n\nIverson: Once I started it, everybody else started doing it. I don't think David Stern was too keen on that.\n\nKozlowski: I sometimes question whether or not Reebok doesn't like him to maintain that image. To sell their shoes to poor people in various locales.\n\nReilly: I always felt that the dress code Stern put in was inadvertently racist. But I don't think he realizes that when Allen Iverson puts on $500,000 worth of jewelry, a brand-new Yankees hat, a brand-new T-shirt that maybe cost him a hundred dollars, $500 jeans, and, you know, expensive Timberlands\u2014that is dressed up. That's what guys wear to the Vibe Awards. That's what guys wear to the Grammys. I think that Stern doesn't get that Allen Iverson is trying to look nice.\n\nIverson: My outfit cost more than the guys that had on a suit. I spent all that money, and I can't wear it? I think suits look nice on people. But I don't feel comfortable when I have on a suit unless it's a sweatsuit.\n\nSpencer: When he turned 21 during his rookie year, he bought himself a gun. It's one of those little things that really drove you crazy about the guy. The community wanted to like him, and then he buys himself a gun and gets caught riding along at 1:30 a.m. on an interstate with a joint.\n\nCroce: And then there was his rap album. It was always something, every couple of weeks. I think he craves a scene of chaos. He works so well in it, off the court and on. On the court in a chaotic situation, he could just weave his way through there. Off the court, I think that's what he was brought up in. He needed agita.\n\nReggie Miller (former guard, Indiana Pacers): During his third year in Philadelphia, he got his first taste of the postseason, against us. We basically murdered them. But he had a great series. And I remember, when it was over, him going to the bench with a towel on his face, crying. It hurt that bad. And I said to myself, He's special. Because they had no shot at beating us. But he felt that they could. All true athletes believe they can conquer.\n\nHoward Eskin (Philadelphia sports-radio host): He got bigger and bigger, and the organization started to let him say no. When he didn't want to do something, they let him not do it. I'd call them enablers.\n\nCroce: That's pure b.s. I disciplined him. I mean, Allen got angry with me once, because I wouldn't let his posse come on the plane. It wasn't my job to do that, but Larry Brown doesn't like to be the bad guy. Things got really ugly between them. Allen would give Larry looks when he was taken off the court. And Larry would get upset, but he wouldn't say anything. In December '99, we met in a conference room at the practice facility. Larry wanted me to get rid of Allen the next day, and Allen wanted me to fire Larry that day. I got deep down into it: \"Larry, Allen thinks you're like the prison guard.\" \"Allen, what do you think Larry feels like when you're m-f'ing him when you come off the court?\" That meeting was like an intervention. Eventually, Allen got up and walked around the table and hugged Larry. That was a turning point for the team.\n\nJasner: The genius of Larry was to surround Allen with four players who didn't need to score, who would do whatever it took to win. That was how they got to the finals in 2001 against the Lakers.\n\nAaron McKie (guard, Los Angeles Lakers; formerly with the Philadelphia 76ers): You have the one golden guy, and everybody else has to play their part and know their roles.\n\nTyronn Lue (guard, Atlanta Hawks; formerly with the Los Angeles Lakers): In Game 1 [of the championship series], with about six minutes to go in the third quarter, A.I. already had, like, forty points. The Sirs were leading by fifteen points. My job was to deny him the ball. After I checked in to the game, he only scored ten or so more points.\n\nBoyd: Lue was sort of holding it close for the fourth quarter. Then Allen hits that three on him in overtime, and Lue falls down, and Allen steps over his head. That's one of the iconic images in NBA history.\n\nLue: I knew he was frustrated, and that was just something to try to show me up. Evidently, it worked, because that's all anybody talks about. As the series went on, we got into it. I don't think we liked each other much.\n\nIverson: I just felt like he did a lot of grabbing and holding. It kind of frustrated me. A lot of times, I had my way with him.\n\nRick Fox (former forward, Los Angeles Lakers): After we won Game 4 to go up three games to one, I remember seeing him being driven down the tunnel in a golf cart to the press room\u2014which is a short walk. I remember thinking, You're MVP of the league, and you've been fighting valiantly, and you're so banged up you can't even make it from your locker room to do press. He is a true warrior.\n\nLue: The next season, we got into it again. I came right up to him and said, \"You keep talking that shit about how you're gonna give me fifty\u2014well, here I am, motherfucker.\" And he was like, \"I don't even know who you are. Who are you?\" I was like, \"I'm the same person who won the championship ring last year.\" The first play, he went backdoor and scored, and he was yelling, \"Gimme the rock, we can do this all night.\" And I was like, \"It's too late. You shoulda did it during the finals.\" After that we started talking more, and we became cool.\n\nIverson: I've got a problem with people who play scared. Tyronn Lue took it as a challenge, like a man.\n\nKaren Frascona (former senior director of communications, Philadelphia 76ers): The next year, after the trip to the finals, Allen and Larry were battling again. [Brown had accused Iverson of setting a bad example by not taking practices seriously.] But after the playoffs, they felt it was important to announce that they had patched things up. Everything was very rushed. I blame myself for what happened.\n\nEskin: At the press conference, Allen was kind of in a festive mood. I don't want to say any more than that.\n\nCoskey: I'd left the office a little bit early that day. I came home and saw my wife watching Allen on TV. She just said, \"Oh, my God.\" And then my phone started to ring.\n\nIverson (at his press conference, May 7, 2002): I'm supposed to be the franchise player, and we're in here talking about practice. I mean, listen: We talking about practice. Not a game, not a game, not a game. We talking about practice. Not a game. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it's my last. Not the game. We're talking about practice, man. I mean, how silly is that? We're talking about practice\u2026 I know I'm supposed to lead by example.\u2026 But we talking about practice, man. What are we talking about? Practice? We're talking about practice, man. We're talking about practice. We're talking about practice. We ain't talking about the game. We're talking about practice, man. When you come into the arena and you see me play\u2014you see me play, don't you? You see me give everything I got, right? But we talking about practice right now.\u2026 But we talking about practice, man\u2026 We're talking about practice.\n\nFrascona: The media were almost egging him on. I tried to redirect him, but he was so emotional. It came out that he was ridiculing practice, but that's not what it was.\n\nGreenberg: He was saying, \"We just finished this season. I scored a lot of points, played hard, played injured. And you have the audacity to say that me being late to practice was why we didn't do better?\"\n\nPlatt: It was right after they lost to the Celtics in the playoffs. Eric Snow had shot, like, 25 percent, and Dikembe Mutombo couldn't even catch the ball. But Allen's always been ultraloyal to his teammates.\n\nCroce: He's never bad-mouthed a player. Ever. Never. He doesn't do that.\n\nEskin: We understood that. But when he said, \"How the hell am I gonna make my teammates better with practice?\" I just started laughing. He would always say, \"I can't practice,\" and they would allow it. Then they'd cover it up. One year he was late for practice at least half of the time. They just let it go. Once you do that, he's in charge.\n\nReilly: Dr. J and Malone missed practice all the time. Iverson probably plays through more injuries than anybody in NBA history.\n\nMiller: If you're a true leader, you have to show up early and stay late. If you take shortcuts, you're giving license to your teammates to do the same, because if the best player's doing it, why can't I?\n\nJasner: In 2004, Chris Ford, the new coach of the 76ers, gave the players the team rules: If they were going to be late, all they had to do was call him personally. You can still play, but you don't start. Allen, who had been injured, went out for warm-up one evening and had someone tell an equipment manager that he wanted to play. Chris wasn't willing to look past that. He said, \"We'll do it as we have done.\" Allen was furious: \"I'm a starter!\" And he did not dress for the game. Instead he sat at the end of the bench in a throwback Kareem jersey. At one point, he was eating nachos. It totally embarrassed the franchise.\n\nEskin: And then last year, he blew off fan-appreciation night. People knew it was time to move on.\n\nKozlowski: He was getting tired of losing. Because he hadn't been associated with it. And he never had a tolerance for it.\n\nCroce: He's got a scoring title. He's got MVP. He's got Rookie of the Year. He's got a bronze medal. The only thing the guy doesn't have is a championship ring. I'm telling you, that's all that's in that guy's head.\n\nPatrick Saunders (staff writer, Denver Post): On December 19, Philadelphia traded Iverson to the Denver Nuggets. Prior to his first game, we had a huge blizzard. Nobody knew for sure when he was going to get in or whether he was going to play. He had only five minutes of warm-up. The arena was electric.\n\nCarmelo Anthony (forward, Denver Nuggets): It was the biggest thing around here since Elway won the Super Bowl.\n\nSaunders: He didn't start, but when he came into the game, it was earsplitting. He raised his hand to acknowledge the standing ovation.\n\nSteve Hess (strength-and-conditioning coach, Denver Nuggets): He hadn't played in two weeks; he'd just been shooting baskets in his front yard. That first game he plays, like, thirty-nine minutes, at altitude, and scores, like, twenty-two points.\n\nSaunders: Carmelo, who was suspended at the time, was home watching the game. He was standing up; he couldn't sit down. Iverson would pass the ball to a teammate, and Carmelo would pretend it was him. He was in his living room flipping his wrist like he's getting a dish from Iverson, and he's making the shot. He got all psyched, so he drove up in his Range Rover and invited Iverson to dinner.\n\nAnthony: I was like a fan. I relate to him more than any other player. I was happy seeing him there in his powder blue uniform.\n\nSaunders: After the game, he gave the media another twenty minutes. And we're thinking, Hey, wait a minute, this isn't the Allen Iverson we were told about. He seemed to enjoy it. It's like he was released or something.\n\nPlatt: It's very reminiscent of Barkley's career, when he left Philly and went to Phoenix and became the league MVP and went to the finals. Maybe Allen can pull off the same thing.\n\nIverson: It's a relief not to be carrying the whole weight of the team anymore. Not to go out night in and night out, score forty, fifty points, and still lose. Now you got not just Carmelo but so many guys. Actually, I felt coming here that I wouldn't get all the attention from defenders that I used to get in Philly. That's been the biggest surprise for me. I think it's a respect that people have for my game.\n\nLinas Kleiza (forward, Denver Nuggets): The media had said he was a thug, always going against coaches. And there was that \"practice, practice.\" But he's probably the best teammate I ever had.\n\nCroce: My advice to Coach Karl is \"The first time A.I. steps over the line, break his toe.\" If someone doesn't say no, he'll just do it. And then you know what happens? People get tired of saying no to him. They don't want to be on his bad side.\n\nJerry Schimmel (sportscaster, Denver Nuggets): The way we're looking at it is this: This could lead to a championship. Before this there was no chance, in my mind.\n\nSheridan: He once told me, \"All my life I've been misunderstood.\" That's what he wants his tombstone to say: misunderstood.\n\nGary Smith (writer, Sports Illustrated): It's almost like he needs that reality to be true more than it is. The way he grew up, you're being screwed, and you're just feeding on it from the day you were born. When he gets out on the court and becomes a warrior, he turns the tables on all that victimhood and sense of misunderstanding. But still, to grow as a person and not just as a basketball player, you've got to find a way out of that.\n\nReilly: In the great pantheon of idiots we've had to cover, this guy isn't even close. I'd take a freakin' subway to a tugboat to a pogo stick to watch the guy play.\n\nHess: His genetics shock the shit out of me as a trainer. He doesn't do a ton of working out; he doesn't need to. I could put him in gravity boots and feed him ice cream and he would still be ridiculous.\n\nGreenberg: I hope that someday people will recognize that he is the greatest small basketball player that ever lived. I mean, the top five points-per-game players in the history of the league? It's Jordan, Wilt, him, Baylor, and West.\n\nPlatt: He really is like Rocky in baggy pants and cornrows.\n\nSteve Nash (guard, Phoenix Suns): If we're describing Allen to someone who'd never seen him play, he'd sound like a giant. He gets to the line at will. He finishes inside with all sorts of creativity and all kinds of contact. He shoots over anyone he wants. He sounds like a six-ten monster. The truth is, he's maybe six feet tall and 165 pounds.\n\nReilly: One hundred sixty pounds. That's dripping wet.\n\nBoyd: One hundred seventy-five, soaking wet, with a brick in his back pocket.\n\nPlatt: I've stood next to him and I'd say he's, like, five ten.\n\nGreenberg: Five ten.\n\nIverson: I'm six feet. Legit.\n\nInterviews by Alex French, Cole Louison, Trent MacNamara, Nate Penn, Candice Rainey, Bryan Thomas, and Greg Veis"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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