Happy anniversary, Allen Iverson’s practice rant!
Let’s all have a moment when we watch this together, an annual tradition
OK, well at least it’s annual tradition for us to laugh at that part. He’s made fun of it plenty of times himself — even Yao Ming made a joke about it during his Hall of Fame speech.
But as ESPN pointed out in 2016, there’s a lot more to that press conference than just Iverson not wanting to practice because practice is boring. Iverson spoke about being hurt over reports that he was going to be traded and was still reeling from the death of his best friend earlier that season.
Via Genius.com:
Reporter: Do you think this is finally over, and do you think it will come up again?
[Iverson]
I hope that it is. But It ain’t really about me. I am selfish to the fact that my daughter has to go through it. My daughter is seven years old. Ask yourself, if your daughter had to listen to people talk bad about that daddy or mother all the time, how would you feel, honestly? If you have kids, I know y’all understand. This is what my daughter goes through at school. She comes home and says her teacher said daddy don’t leave. Daddy, the girl in my class says you’re getting traded. All for a game, a (expletive) game.A lot of y’all can’t put your feet in my shoes because you can’t handle it. But just try to stick your feet in my shoes. It does not have to be a [expletive] day, just try for a minute and try to deal with what I do in my life. My best friend is dead and we lost. And this is what I have to go through for the rest of the summer until the season is all over again. This is what I got to go through…this is my life in a nutshell. Now y’all come home and live your lovely life, live it up and live your life to the fullest.
More on that last part from ESPN:
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. Rahsaan Langeford was shot and killed seven months earlier, an event with which Iverson struggled to cope. 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.
The 2014 documentary “Iverson” explores this dimension.
“Nobody looks at the whole comment Allen made,” Scoop Jackson says in the film. “He was talking about his boy dying … [The media] would not play that full track.”
More on their relationship from a 2002 New York Times article on Iverson:
He was one of the friends with whom Iverson had made a pact as a teenager: if one of them got out, they all got out. Langford’s death, at age 29, affected Iverson deeply. Last season, he wore ”Ra” on a black armband and touched it before each free throw.
Langford was the most valuable kind of friend, someone who told Iverson when he did right and also when he did wrong.
“He wasn’t one of those kind of guys that followed him around telling him what he wanted to hear,” Harper said. “Not one of these yes men. I think Allen appreciated having someone who would give it to him straight and not just shine his shoes.”