Allen Iverson finally opens up about a moment that has become iconic in sports history — and it’s not the game.
“The Answer” kicks off Misunderstood: A Memoir with one of the most legendary postgame press conference monologues in professional sports: “So what about the situation with the practices?”
I’m supposed to be the franchise player, and we’re talking about practice. Not a game! Not a game! Not a game! We’re 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?
The six-foot shooting guard didn’t think one press conference answer would outlive his highlights, though he admits he “said the word practice a lot, as everyone in the whole damn world knows.” Iverson writes that it was his “moves on the basketball court that went viral — before going viral was a thing,” at least up to that point: “After that press conference, ‘practice’ became as recognizably me as any crossover, any jump shot, any championship, or any heartbreak.”
What Iverson gets at — the blend of on-court prowess and off-court virality — is familiar to anyone who follows professional sports. Athletes who rise above simple greatness to become legends capture more than just statistical leaderboards: Joe DiMaggio’s grace in center field made him the Yankee Clipper, but it was the aspirational vision he represented (and his marriage to Marilyn Monroe) that prompted Paul Simon to ask where he’d gone. Mike Tyson may have been the greatest boxer in the world, but his personality, biceps size, pixelated bouts on the NES, and Hangover movie appearances made him a cultural phenomenon. And Lance Armstrong’s personal story inspired a generation of kids to wear yellow silicone bracelets.
Iverson’s persona is his person; as he writes in Misunderstood, he has never attempted to be anything other than what he is. His upbringing — darting back and forth between his mom’s house in Hampton, Va., and the projects where the stand-in for his father lived, committing petty crimes with friends, and being (unjustly, as he convincingly argues) convicted over a bowling alley melee — informed who he became.
It is fitting that Iverson’s explanation of what prompted the “practice” soliloquy combines the world he came from with the one he entered. His best friend, Rahsaan Langford, was killed in a Hampton nightclub after looking at the wrong guy the wrong way while Iverson was in Philadelphia for 76ers training camp — seven months before the press conference.
“‘I lost my best friend,’ I said,” he tells the reader. “And between that and a disappointing season, I told them I was feeling ‘that everything is going downhill for me as far as my life. I’m human. I am just like you. You bleed just like I bleed, you cry just like I cry, you hurt just like I hurt.’” He says it, yet reporters kept asking about practice.
That story, right at the beginning of Misunderstood, is representative of the rest of the book. A person with the odds stacked against him, having experienced enough for multiple lifetimes, succeeds through sheer force of will and God-given athletic ability. And it’s impossible to discount Iverson’s talent: He was a generational talent in football and basketball, playing in a Pee Wee league at age 8 alongside kids as old as 12.
Iverson never won an NBA title — though he delivered the Los Angeles Lakers their only loss of the 2000-01 playoffs during Game 1 of the Finals by stepping over opposing guard Tyronn Lue. And while he won an MVP and led the league in scoring four times, his peak moment came against Chicago Bulls during his rookie year.
And there I was. Directly facing the basket, outside the three-point line, with Michael Jordan staring at me from his defensive crouch. I paused, then backed up for a second. I always knew that if he was guarding me, I would try my move. So when he got on me, I was like, Here we go.
As I retreated, you could hear the crowd respond. Like this is what they came for. The volume rose. Anticipation filled the air. I gave him a little left-to-right cross first to see if he would bite on it. He did. The crowd reacted. I let him set his feet as I dribbled the ball back to my left had. Then I hit him with the real one — this time his body went all the way to my left as I crossed over to the right. With space and him almost on the ground (his Jordans saving his ankles), I pulled up just inside the three-point line.
The jumper was cash. The crowd fucking erupted.
Iverson wrote, “Even now little kids don’t say, You’re Allen Iverson. They say, You’re the guy who crossed over Michael Jordan.” And what made that moment legendary — beyond getting one over on the GOAT — is just how cool AI looked doing it. That’s truly what set him apart and made him a cultural icon.
For so many contemporary NBA stars, AAU basketball has left them bland, faceless automatons. For others, like LeBron James, political activism has taken the place of personality. Not for Iverson, who recounts drawing controversy by stating, “All Lives Matter” during the initial wave of Black Lives Matter protests. In this, he shares a quality with Michael Jordan — he of “Republicans buy sneakers, too” fame. Iverson is bigger than politics in the same way he is bigger than basketball.
Now that he’s finally talking about practice, NBA enthusiasts and sports fans would do well to listen.