When he got to Philly he was rusty, a bit fatter, slower, and weaker and he wasn’t in game shape. A 34 year old taking a month off; and eating and drinking whatever for a month without working out is not going to be ready to play NBA basketball. It showed in Philly, all of AI’s points came off of jumpers, he was still getting to the line but he couldn’t finish through traffic like he once could, his first step took a small hit, his conditioning was bad and his jumper wasn’t as wet as usual. The league was all of a sudden brain washed into thinking Allen Iverson is a bench player, the NBA didn’t help Iverson either all the writers wrote Iverson off and supported the theory that he was a bench player. These articles that ran on NBA.com were articles that are read by fans all across the world. ESPN who has a history of bashing Iverson did their part, every week Iverson was given negative press and labeled as a washed up superstar whose ego is too big.
Commissioner’s Dog House
Everyone that has followed basketball for the past decade knows Iverson and NBA Commissioner David Stern don’t have such a good relationship. As a matter of fact one can argue that Stern has hated Iverson ever since he entered the league. Allen Iverson changed the league by turning it hip-hop. Before Iverson you did not see players with cornrows, tattoos and hip hop clothing on. Iverson was the first to do it and the rest of the league now thought it was okay as well. Michael Jordan had retired and Allen Iverson was the face of the league but he was intimidating to a lot of people. As the years went by Iverson became one of the most popular athletes in the world and now all over the world kids were wearing Iverson jerseys and sleeves. David Stern did not like this, the best player in the league looked like a criminal and the rest of the league was following his lead. Iverson made his style mainstream and the world loved him, he made the league a lot of money. Stern realized that Iverson was the face of the league and there was nothing he could do about it. Stern wanted Iverson to become an angle; he wanted Iverson to be the clean cut superstar that doesn’t make any mistakes. Iverson found this fake and wasn’t changing for anybody; he valued his identity and always spoke his mind. When Stern enforced a dress code in 2005 which was mainly because of Iverson players across the league weren’t too happy and Iverson was the first to speak his mind about it. Iverson spoke his mind on any controversial issue and Stern didn’t like it, now that LeBron James had entered the league it was time to change him into the face of the league. LeBron was the perfect clean cut superstar Iverson wasn’t; James said all the right things and endorsed the NBA. The league was slowly turning into what Stern had always hoped for it to be.
When Iverson was traded to Denver he showed no signs of slowing down, he had some of the best statistical seasons of his career. But the Nuggets failed to get past the Lakers and the media blamed Iverson.