Was Allen Iverson Drunk During His Infamous ‘Practice’ Rant?
As his 40th year approaches, basketball fans everywhere are looking back at Allen Iverson’scareer with a mix of admiration and sobriety. On the one hand, Iverson was a fireball, an underdog, a warrior and just about any other David-fighting-in-a-Goliath-world cliche. On the other hand, his troubled attitude concerning authority was both an aid to his fierce will, and a detriment to his teams and public perception of him. That’s why his 2002 rant about “PRACTICE!'” sticks in the craw of his diehard supporters. It challenges the myth-making tendencies we have, chops down an icon for the moment when he showed his boldest hubris.
A Bleacher Report piece on Iverson’s life and career includes this bit of context about the conflict brewing between him and then-coach, HOFer Larry Brown:
In 2002, he came within minutes of being traded. He met with Billy King and Larry Brown in a particularly tense meeting in King’s office. If the meeting didn’t go well, he was gone.“They would have pulled the trigger,” says Iverson. “I knew it.”He didn’t want to leave Philly. His anxiety was made worse when his kids would come home from school with messages from their friends asking Iverson not to leave the Sixers.In the end, he would agree that he could work with Brown. Iverson asked to be a captain and promised to set a good example. Iverson says afterward, still stressed from the meeting and mourning the recent death of his best friend Rahsaan Langford, he got in his car and drove straight to the arena for what would become the infamous “Practice” press conference.
And now Kent Babb, author of Not A Game, insinuates Iverson may have been intoxicated during the speech, having gone to a bar to blow off steam from the tense exchange between him, Brown and former Sixers GM Billy King.
Between the trade talk, the frustration of leading an often middling team, and the constant scrutiny he faced for his style choices and demeanor, Iverson was the perfect combination of fed-up and indignant. As he struggled with the recent death of his friend, and battled with domestic demons that surfaced later when wife Tawanna Iverson filed of charges against him for hitting her, AI was on the edge of a major breakdown, one that would reveal just how entrenched his personal problems had become.
Published by: Dime Uproxx
June 4th, 2015
Source: www.uproxx.com
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