Originally Posted by
mumixpd
Originally Posted by
bundy9
Originally Posted by
LilStarZ07
Originally Posted by Al3xis
he'll be back. Big John's gona knock some sense into him.
a little story ...
im at the capital classic (i think thats what it is/was called where the best high school bball players play an all star game from this area) at the old wizards joint before verizon ... this is when bogans was a senior ...
im sitting in the stands and i hear this deep voice talking, so i turn around ... John Thompson ... whos he sitting next to? Allen Iverson ... im in awe that my favorite player of all time college/pro is behind me ... so i slowly turn back around cuz i dont want to act pressed ESPECIALLY cuz ai was that dude in the streets
... i hear thompson say "hey, its ok kid, its ok" ... i must have had some type of face on when i turned around prior cuz he was talking to me ...
so i slowly turn back around and he invites me up to sit next to him ... now the whole time in my mind im trying hard as *+** not to talk to iverson cuz i dont want to come off as being THAT fan ... so we are talking about the game of basketball and what not and JT tells me (i was a small dude) that anythings possible in the game of basketball if you want it bad enough, and points to ai as proof ... i look at ai and said "naw coach, you dont learn that or work to get to that, thats special" ... ai turns and daps me up and says "i appreciate it homie" ... John Thompson says "well you have that right" and we all laughed and continued watching the game ...
i finally got over the shock/awe of sitting next to my idol and just cut it up with him and JT for the entire game ... ai wasnt this impersonal dude or some cold shoulder type star ... maybe it was because JT was sitting next to him but dude was just normal ... at one point someone dunked something serious and we both got up and cheered and he turned to me and dapped me up just like any of my boys would have done ...
so hopefully you are right and JT gets him back on the court somehow ...
ai is my favorite player of all time ... i wore #3 in high school ... begged my mom for every pair of questions/answers that ever came out when i was younger ... i have all his jerseys ... ai was my NBA ...
lovely story dude...I do hope at some point I'll get to meet him. Definitely one of my bball idols of all time...No one on the island of St. Lucia can't say that I didn't put up for this dude!...Biggest supporter out there!!! I do hope JT can get him out of the decision...but seriously how could people laugh and talk samck about AI for whatever reason!? I just don't get it...This guy has done more than enough to prove he's worthy of praise...he messed up, we all mesed up, but for sure it was all passion, all love...sighh
just adding my little experience with AI, he is, was and always be my favorite player of all time
This was back when he was first traded to the pistons, he had his first game against the nets. I bought 2 pretty good tickets and one of his PE shoes to the nets arena trying to get an auto, you can always
buy an auto'ed shoe, but getting it in person is different, at least to me
got to the game a little early, so we tried to go to the courtside trying to catch him during the shoot arounds. happy to see him there, but the security wasn't allowing nobody to approach the players. so it was us and about at least another 50 or so trying to get him to sign something. by this time the shoot around was over, the players are heading towards the tunnels back to the locker room, behold Ai was the only player to stop and sign for the fans near the tunnel (the only true super star out of that whole group of role players actually managed to stop, while the nobodys walked on). Obviously the kids started swarming him and i guess it was a controlled chaos cause nobody wanted to fall over of the fences on the side of the tunnel. He must have signed some 20 or so autos when i finally got a chance to hand the shoe to him, and by this time he already had a blue marker in his hands from some kid earlier. The shoe was black and i was like damn this auto is not gonna show up but whatever at least he was nice enough to sign it. and be hold here comes AI said something like "this is not gonna work, you got a different color?" and there goes me handing out my purposely bought, gold - metallic 10 dollar fade proof mitsubishi marker like a jkidd assist. and the man signed it with a smile casue he knew it looked good
I knew i probably make this seemingly little thing sounds a bit dramatic, but it you are a bonafide NBA star, would you really care about how you signed an auto for somebody you never met before and probably will never meet again? I am ashamed to say i wouldn't care if i was him and this is probably true for 90% of the people out there.
And obviously in life you win some and you lose some, and sometimes when you win you actually lose. Since i bought a shoe hoping to get to signed, i bought another shoe (the red olympic hyperdunk made for yi) as well trying get yi to sign them. this was the yi's second year (first in jersey) and people actually had some hope for him. For you guys who knew the arena, people we are trying to get to nets players usually wait by the tunnels where the player would drive out after the game. there were like 15 or so people waiting, and after chatting with thos guys up a bit, they seem to always to there after every game and knew everybody's signing habits. they were saying how VC, Jkidd and Yi (a second/third tier player for god's sake
) never signs and would just drive through. A bit later VC and Jkidds (in his nice vanquish) drives through and nobody really made a fuss casue they knew what to expect. Then here come this boy yi with his New range Hse trying to do the same thing, and my girl (after waiting 15 or so minutes in the jersey cold winter) wasn't having none of that. She started banging on the side of the RR and after 6 seconds or so yi finally opened the drive side window and asked with an attitude what and if we wanted an autograph. ( the funny thing is if he had a chick on on the passenger side and he was in a hurry i would understand from a dude's point of view (word to mikki morre always had 3 or 4 cheerleader looking chicks in his open top pimped out 80's buick), but this bum yi had a 5'5 derrick coleman looking black dude with a stoneface on like he is not getting his business from yi soon enough because of us. Long story short, i wanted to throw out the HDs afterward and ........... yeah......... we are chinese (and that's the only reason i wanted this bum's auto was to support him)
Again I know those 2 different players shouldn't be judged on as people just based on those brief enounters, but again i hope this little story give all the iverson haters a little scope on AI as a person (as all you guys can see by my post count i hate typing, and spend my rare day off from the hedgefund industy - the thanksgiving holiday, to actually type up this essay for a discussion board, is trully something else). As far as how i feel toward AI's career, i personally think it was great and one of the best ever. I was not old enough to experience the greatness of penny hardaway beisdes the youtube videos, but some of my older friends have told me it was sad to see penny drag his half broken body of the bench just to play 10 and score 4. and it seems like greats of my time like shaq, mcgrady, carter and even kg are headed down toward that path. and also let's not forget chris webber, truly one of the greats at the pf position and it was sad the way he went out.
i believe GREAT PLAYERS DESERVE GREAT ENDIINGS, NOT ON THE END OF SOMEBODY'S BENCH. It's true allen iverson never won a title, but he repesented the struggle a player or a person has to go through in order to achieve. in the end, ALLEN IVERSON REPRESNETED THE FIGHT, not necessary the outcome, and that's why i believe he is, was, and will always be great. yes tyronne Lue won a ring, but he will be remembered because of Iverson
This is truly the end of an era that's beyond just basketball. the NBA today is just not watchable beside maybe kobe. Teams not longer have a soul (the sixers traded theirs when they traded iverson), there are too many so called "stars" in the league where they have done absolute nothing but average 20 for a season. It comes down to the NBA CAN NOT JUST MAKE A STAR, STARS HAVE TO BE RECONGNIZED BEYOND BASKETBALL. Sure lebron is a great player, but i personally feel he has no personality, more like the bastard child of divid stern and nike trapped in a great athlete's body, and that image is being adapted to every other player in the league, just look at melo.
PHILADELPHIA 76ERS, PLEASE DO THE RIGHT THING WHEN THERE IS STILL A CHANCE