After lighting it up in Georgetown, Allen Iverson was the No. 1 overall pick in 1996. By the spring of 1997, it was clear he had that season’s Rookie of the Year award in the bag. And on March 12, the Answer met the GOAT for the first time in Philly.
As Iverson admitted during his Hall of Fame speech in 2016, Michael Jordan was the reason he first picked up a basketball. Meeting your childhood idol can be never-wracking – he’d be excused if he had been overly anxious.
That’s not really Bubba Chuck’s speed, however. Not only was Iverson going to rise to the occasion, but the rookie was going to own the moment. Here’s what AI said about the moment years later:
“…I heard Phil Jackson call [Jordan] out. He called him out on the switch. Come here, man. Now I’mma try my move on the best person that I’ve ever seen play the game. Now I’mma see if this move is real. And now I’m like, ‘Oh [expletive]’, and the craziest part is I didn’t know what I did until ESPN and ‘errbody else talking about it. I hit him with that thang.”
For his career, Michael Jordan was named to the NBA All-Defensive First-Team nine times, including in ’96, ’97, and ’98. This man played impossibly good defense. And Iverson cooked him all the same.
It’s one of those iconic moments that lives in the heart of every true NBA fan. In some ways, this was the moment AI really arrived on the NBA scene. And as Iverson tells it, Jordan still brings this moment up to this day.
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