Iverson

[Randy]

Big East great Allen Iverson retired over the weekend. Given all the Doug talk, I was wondering what Iverson's legacy in the BE is, especially with the old guard BE.

p.s- I seriously thought we was retired like 6 years ago.

[admin]

Practice!

[marquette]

Interesting. I was also under the impression that he had retired a couple of years back. Looking at his wikipedia page it appears that he hasn't played since 2011. I think AI was a great player, and took Georgetown to an elite 8 and 2 sweet 16s. I was too young to really care much about college ball back then (outside of my mother cheering on UConn and my father occasionally taking interest in UW). He was also a great player in Philly too, they've never really gotten back to where they were when he was leading the team. It's a shame he never got a championship at the professional level.

[Bill Marsh]

Pound for pound Allen Iverson was one of the best players the conference has ever seen. It's incredible how he could dominate a game at his size. Unfortunately dominating the ball was the only way he knew how to play and it eventually took its toll on his body.

Bryce Cotton reminds me of Iverson except that he plays more under control and fits his game into a team concept.

Interesting side note is that despite being from Virginia, Iverson was conceived in Hartford when his parents were in high school. A former coach in the area told me that the father, who was under 6 feet, was a tremendous basketball talent but never did anything with his talent. He was lost to the streets. Allen overcame a lot to get where he is.

[redmen9194]

Iverson was scary good. Great player who probably is in the top 10-20 range in the Big East.

[senditinjerome]

Believe it or not, Iverson is broke, even though he earned over $150M in salary from his NBA contracts + a $50M endorsement deal from Reebok. It should be noted that $30M of this $50M was set aside by Reebok on his behalf as a "rainy day fund"....however, he cannot access these funds until the year 2030.

So he prob didn't officially retire until now because he was hoping to get picked up by a team because he needs the money more than anything else.

[marquette]

Believe it or not, Iverson is broke, even though he earned over $150M in salary from his NBA contracts + a $50M endorsement deal from Reebok. It should be noted that $30M of this $50M was set aside by Reebok on his behalf as a "rainy day fund"....however, he cannot access these funds until the year 2030.

So he prob didn't officially retire until now because he was hoping to get picked up by a team because he needs the money more than anything else.

That's a sad state of affairs. Good on Reebok for setting something aside for him. Hopefully he isn't borrowing against that fund (at least not too much). I have to believe there are jobs that he could get paid a fair amount to do still. There are people who make a reasonable living running basketball camps, who don't have anywhere near the name recognition AI has. I wish him the best in his future endeavors. He was one of the greats.

[GumbyDamnit!]

Iverson was a terrific talent/player at G'twn but not sure where he could be considered all time because he bolted early after 2 years. He's sort of like Carmelo. Clearly an all time great but didn't play in a lot of games. I can tell you that the Iverson vs Kittles vs Ray Allen games in AI's 2nd year were tremendous battles. To have 3 2-guards that were all AA caliber in the league the same year was a lot of fun to watch.

[ChelseaFriar]

Pound for pound Allen Iverson was one of the best players the conference has ever seen. It's incredible how he could dominate a game at his size. Unfortunately dominating the ball was the only way he knew how to play and it eventually took its toll on his body.

Bryce Cotton reminds me of Iverson except that he plays more under control and fits his game into a team concept.

Interesting side note is that despite being from Virginia, Iverson was conceived in Hartford when his parents were in high school. A former coach in the area told me that the father, who was under 6 feet, was a tremendous basketball talent but never did anything with his talent. He was lost to the streets. Allen overcame a lot to get where he is.

Iverson's second cousin, Kuran Iverson, currently plays for Memphis. Kuran played much of his HS career at Northwest Catholic in West Hartford.

http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-men ... 0404.story

[stever20]

I don't know about his place, but man seeing him getting his number retired made me feel old....