Reminiscing about Allen Iverson, one of the best NBA players of all time, and how he has influenced our view of survival in America.
Still, in 2022, 12 years after Allen Iverson stopped playing basketball, he has something that seems a little out of this world.
There’s no flashy crossover here, just the truth that Iverson shouldn’t have accomplished what he did. The little guard, on the other hand, usually won in the most important situations.
undersized, ignored, and misunderstood. A brilliant athlete who got caught up in the draconian US court system as a child, a Virginia kid with “red flags” who had offer letters rejected because universities thought he was a “thug”, and continual media hostility throughout his adult life in a complex career as an NBA superstar
Nonetheless, I had faith in Iverson. He also had faith in himself. This was undoubtedly his most distinguishing feature. After all, he was astoundingly confident, if not arrogant—a global talent who was absurdly justified in his self-assurance. He was an outlaw who the establishment couldn’t control, and I admired him for it.
A.I. This is the epitome of surviving against the forces of institutional and systemic aggression for my generation. I saw his saga unfold from my single father’s apartment in California as a Mexican American youngster learning about the world, astounded by both his willpower and his handles.
Despite being the shortest player on the court, Iverson dribbled his way to the summit of a game dominated by actual giants. He was boldly forthright, outhustling a predatory American society that tried but failed to destroy him and those like him. Regardless of the conditions, Iverson established himself as the game’s most raw scorer.
But Iverson was more than a basketball player. He was a poet, after all. A philosopher, to be precise. An alchemist, if you will. He’s a conjurer. He was a politician who talked to our basketball nation with his body, squeezing beyond halfcourt markers before cutting back and leaping off one leg to hit the most artistic 2-pointers from the top of the key.
Iverson was known as “The Answer” during his prime. Perhaps it’s because he unlocked the NBA’s scoring algorithm to win MVP in both the 2000–01 and 2004–05 seasons — an 11-time All-Star, Hall of Famer, NBA scoring champ, former No. 1 overall pick, and Rookie of the Year who never took his foot off the gas pedal from the moment he entered the league and unlaced his idol, Michael Jordan, on prime time television, to the moment he dusted Tyronn Lue’s ankles in the NBA Finals.
He was adamant about not dying on the court.
Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images
Allen Iverson survived as much as he did anything else
To many people, survival can mean a variety of things. I recall taking the train into West Philadelphia one hot summer and seeing crooked avenues, skewed roofs, and faded murals adorning liquor store corners.
The manner in which individuals move The way the community was brimming with contagious enthusiasm. It was a kingdom, and the salt of everyone’s skin and their histories clashed with the city’s noises.
Philadelphia, like the rest of the country, is defined by survival and revolutionary independence. As the son of Mexican immigrants, I understand how greatness is not a given, but rather a bet for many of us in this country.
Allen Iverson’s arrival there as a rookie in 1996, was nothing short of a heavenly basketball miracle for all of us to see. A silkster with a baby afro who can undress his opponents and reveal their naked secrets in front of large crowds.
Survival He learnt how to manipulate every ounce of his small frame and transfer that feeling across the court with each brilliant dribble when resources were withheld from him—and others around him. Survival
Survival meant clutching the orange orb like some sort of celestial instrument he could use to speak with the gods, in order to inspire—or punish—the rest of us mortals who were blessed to see his nightly resurrection and revolt.
Iverson should never have been the player he became, but it was the only player he could ever be at the time. An idol with flaws A valiant villain His ability to execute the smoothest, most measured move, then to take the finest shot — with arms and outstretched fingers tangled in his face and abdomen — constrained and defined the path he was given.
It appears that Iverson’s wholeness was chiseled from the bones of a faulty government that leaves entire villages like his in the wreckage of despair and historical neglect, where a youngster must learn to ball himself into manhood, and then into an eternal force—which he did. He was barely 6-feet tall and weighed 165 pounds.
I admire Iverson for it. Because of what he meant to those of us who weren’t supposed to be who we are but did regardless.
This is an ode to his transcendence, to his unbreakable spirit, to the No. 3 sewn onto a jersey fabric that so many of us wore — and imagined we could inhabit — when we were just learning about the unforgiving dynamics of how easily our shot attempts could bounce off iron rims on blacktop schoolyards for a miss.
More than his physical achievements, Iverson’s survival is a spiritual dedication and a social revolt that we can all learn from and incorporate into our own lives.
Many of us now use him in our jobs as teachers, construction workers, bartenders, and journalists, as well as graduates of his basketball seminars. We are fans of his delightfully imperfect legacy, and we carry him with us in our work.
Iverson famously described himself as the embodiment of “survival,” or, as his old coach put it, “A.I.” was “a man who believed in himself so strongly that you had to believe in him, too,” and we believed in our own value by trusting in his ability to out-will and endure.
A.I. is hereby declared. Even if he no longer wears Philadelphia’s black and red uniform of the early 2000s, he is the most iconic athlete of my boyhood, a legend worth rediscovering and paying homage to.
He was both “The Answer” and “The Question,” a perplexing conundrum who refused to accept society’s status quo and instead decided to live by his own standards of greatness. Let us all return to this Allen Iverson version from within. For the sake of survival, let us all hoop together.
