When it comes to Philadelphia 76ers guard Allen Iverson, there are a few things that come to mind for fans. There is always the iconic step over Tyronn Lue as well as all of the big scoring games, but there is always one big thing that gets attached his name and that is the wild “practice” rant.
However, Iverson is here to set the record straight on the rant. He sat down with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson on “All The Smoke” and Barnes asked him about what went into that rant. Iverson had all the time in the world to explain what happened.
Iverson said:
First of all, we went out in the first round after going to the Finals. ’02, went out in the first round, best friend just got killed. I was struggling with the fact that because of our expectations after going to the Finals, you don’t go out in the first round. So, I’m dealing with the Philadelphia media, which is brutal, and my man just got killed and honestly, I think that they hadn’t caught the [expletive] that did it. I was dealing with a whole bunch of [expletive] at the time because with the people not atching him yet, something happened to him, who are they going to look at? I was worried about that and whoever the reporter was kept asking me about practice situations and I just lost it. If I could take it back, I had the opportunity to walk away. I had the opportunity to walk away from the podium and our PR person was tapping me like ‘AI come on, come on, come on’ and I was like ‘Nah, I’m not going away.
On top of that, Iverson was also dealing with trade rumors and things that affected his family going into the press conference.
He added:
They were talking about trading me and I had just come from a meeting with the general manager and coach Brown and they was like ‘you’re not going nowhere’. But I was dealing with my kids saying ‘Daddy why are my classmates and my teachers saying tell yout daddy don’t leave’ so it was affecting my house too. So I was happy as hell that I was going to the press conference to say ‘I wasn’t going nowhere’, but they didn’t care about that. All they was talking about was practice and the rest is history. I went crazy.
While some fans and analysts might find the rant funny, to Iverson, there’s a reason why he went off the way he did. He had a lot on his mind and he did not want to talk about practice. He had other things on his mind. [lawrence-related id=37904,37900,37897]