9/21/2023 0 Comments Ai practice rant transcript"I'm upset for one reason: 'Cause I'm in here. In truth, minutes after he jokes about practice, Iverson becomes more serious and vulnerable. "Nobody looks at the whole comment Allen made," Scoop Jackson says in the film. The 2014 documentary "Iverson" explores this dimension. All throughout the '01-'02 season, Langeford's death hung over Iverson, and just days before his interview, the murder trial for the man accused of killing Langeford began. Rahsaan Langeford was shot and killed seven months earlier, an event with which Iverson struggled to cope. The other part few remember from the practice rant is the raw and lingering wound Iverson still suffered from the death of his best friend. Maybe you had to have been around him all the time to know the difference, but we all knew." "If he had been sober, he would have been able to get himself out of that. "He was lit," said Smallwood, who attended the conference. Some were amused, and others watched the trainwreck unfold - knowing from experience that Iverson was drunk. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it's my last. I mean, listen: We talking about practice. "We sitting in here - I'm supposed to be the franchise player, and we in here talking about practice. Instead of getting the opportunity to announce that everything was all right, that he and Brown were staying to make another title run, Iverson found himself on the defensive as journalists questioned his dedication to practice - one of Brown's frequent and public gripes about his star player. "I assume he went and fooled around somewhere," Brown said, tipping his hand upward like a bottle. In "Not A Game," Babb writes that Brown and others believed Iverson was drunk, a claim Iverson firmly denies. It was exactly what Iverson wanted to hear, and he agreed to a news conference that evening to confirm the story to the team's beat reporters in a sort of exit interview.īut when he returned a few hours later, something was off. The contentious relationship between Iverson and Sixers head coach Larry Brown bubbled over repeatedly throughout the season, and four days after their playoff exit, the situation between the two again came to a head when Iverson was late to a meeting.Īs chronicled in "Not A Game," a 2015 Iverson biography by Kent Babb, the player and his coach had a shouting match outside of the team facility that only abated when Brown told Iverson he wasn't going to trade him - that the two would remain in Philadelphia for at least another year. 500 and were knocked out of the first round of the playoffs by the Celtics. One year after Iverson won a scoring title and willed Philadelphia within three wins of a championship, the Sixers barely finished above. The 2001-2002 season was an across-the-board disappointment for the 76ers. The now-legendary rant encapsulated Iverson for all that he was - funny, proud, indignant, exasperating, misunderstood.īut like many things associated with Iverson, the real story behind his words is darker and more complicated than is often remembered. You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browserĪllen Iverson's practice rant: What has been forgotten 14 years laterĮDITOR'S NOTE: This originally ran on to commemorate the anniversary of Iverson's rant.įourteen years ago Saturday, Allen Iverson sat in front of the media covering his Philadelphia 76ers and said the word "practice" 22 times.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |