In the following excerpt from Misunderstood: A Memoir, NBA Hall of Famer Allen Iverson recounts how he wrestled with success, fame, and lofty expectations during his rookie season with the Philadelphia 76ers — while also enjoying the hell out of his rising celebrity.
I was back in Cleveland for our first game after the All-Star Break. I had vowed I would show that crowd what’s up after they booed me. But I had a terrible game, and they booed me again. I hated the Cleveland fans at that point.
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That’s how it went for a little while — losses, negativity. For the first time in my life, it almost felt like I had lost my legs. I shot the ball terribly. I tried to distribute, but my teammates weren’t making anything either. It was like we had reentered that period where we lost 23 out of 24.
The Sixers fans were getting pissed off at the losing too. The negative stories about me continued. I held a little press gathering a few days later, at a Reebok event, trying to turn the narrative around. I told these guys the same story, that I respected the legends who came before me. But then they switched it up and started asking me about rumors that I owned a gun in my name. I told them that I did, and that I had to protect myself. With that as the new focal point, it became more of Allen Iverson is a bad guy but add guns to the mix.
Feeling like talking just made it worse, I told the media I was done with that shit. No more press availability. I remember a couple days later, after we won one against the Clippers, Pat Croce came up to me in the arena, and he was like, Chuck, you got to talk to these guys. So I agreed to do it, but I took one from the Coach Thompson playbook and said I would only answer questions about basketball. And that’s how I handled it for the rest of the season.
It wasn’t just me feeling the heat. Johnny Davis’s job was rumored to be in trouble, and as the trade deadline approached, I think some dudes were actually hoping to get traded.
All this shit hurt, but my life kept on being this dream. Reebok officially released The Question. The authentic me was front and center in the marketing campaign. Of course all my family and friends were wearing them. I wore them on the court for the rookie game, the red, white, and blue matching my Sixers uniform.
Seeing them like that — on my feet, family and friends wearing them — was one thing, but I will never forget witnessing them out in the world for the first time. I was in my car, and a kid had the joints on. Just walking down the city streets. After I passed him in my car, I stopped and put the motherfucker in park. I just kept it there as I looked at the kid in my rearview. Kept my eyes on him until he walked out of sight.
It might as well have been me I was looking at. Here I was, exactly a year removed from driving that first Mercedes off the lot. Three years removed from jail. Not even seven years removed from walking up to Bethel High, just hoping my name was on the list. Seven years removed from hustling. Eight, maybe nine years removed from swiping worms from the corner store and lifting loose change from cars in the mall parking lot. Here I was, in my Benz or my Rolls or whatever it was that day, watching my shoes accompanying this anonymous kid down the city streets.
In spite of all the losing that season, I was loving my life. Makes me think of a conversation I had with my mom — years later, but I think about it a lot. I said to her, “I’m getting scared.”
And she was like, “About what?”
I said, “Everything is perfect right now. As good as it could be.”
“What do you mean?”
So I tried to explain it. “You know, I been with Tawanna, shit, my whole fucking life. If her day ain’t good, my day ain’t good. Everything is great with us, my kids are doing fine, my family is fine. All the money we have coming in. Everything is cool. But I’m scared.”
“That don’t make no sense.”
“Everything just seems too goddamn perfect. I feel like something bad is going to happen.”
She just said, “Don’t you ever live your life like that. That’s a blessing, man, God is blessing you, that’s a part of being blessed: things going well in your life. Don’t get scared of that, don’t fucking jinx yourself to where something bad gotta be happening or feel like you got used to bad shit happening in life. You know, life is supposed to be fucking great. I know life is hard at times. But when it’s going good, that’s a blessing. It don’t always have to be bad.”
So I always tried to enjoy the good times. But I admit, I was never confident they would continue. That’s one reason I think I played like I did, and maybe why I partied that way too. Like you never know how long it’s going to last. It seemed like it wasn’t supposed to happen in the first place.
The Reebok Questions got released as planned, but they were hard to get your hands on at first. Everybody wanted them. I will never forget when I was in LA, and after a game, I heard I had a visitor.
Came out the locker room, and there he was. Biggie. I was just like, “What the fuck you doing here?”
He went, “I came to see you. I need to get me the Questions.”
I had to act cool, having this idol waiting for me, to ask me for something. I was like, “I got you.” Then we chilled that night. And I made sure we sent them kicks, obviously.
Man, when I got to the league, it was like a world opened up to me. When I tell you that I was going out with my friends to clubs, out late into the night, many times it wasn’t just us. I was chilling with the dudes I idolized, who, like I said, provided the soundtrack of my life.
It started before the draft even. I had gone to hoop at Rucker Park, in Harlem, because you had to play there back then. You weren’t the real shit unless you did. When I showed up, all kinds of people came to see the show. That’s when I first met Biggie and Lil’ Cease from Junior M.A.F.I.A., dudes who’d already done exactly what we were dreaming of doing, conquering, getting rich, and bringing everyone with them. They’d made records. I was playing basketball. So after that with Biggie, we’d chill when I was in New York, or when he was in the same city I happened to be in. One night earlier that year, when I was in New York, me and some of my friends were invited to his recording studio. It’s one of those times it felt like I was dreaming. Everyone was smoking, chilling. At that particular point, I only smoked here and there, and even then, I only started from when I was at Georgetown. So I smoked a little that night, but then I started tripping. I remember I went to the bathroom, and I was wearing this Janet Jackson shirt, and the reflection just started freaking me out. Then I couldn’t find my way back down the hallway to the recording studio. Turned out what I smoked was some fucking hash. I really didn’t know what I was doing.
So eventually I made it back after some worker found my ass and took me. Me and Ra and E were just sitting there, tripping, as we watched Biggie work on a couple tracks from Life After Death. At that point, it had been a minute since his last release, so this was going to be his next big one. That night, Biggie recorded parts of “You’re Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)” and “My Downfall.” Ra and E were imagining making it in that world. I was just a fan watching this genius work, man.
Flash forward to March 9, about a month after the All-Star Game, and we had a game in Washington. My mom came to DC to watch my homecoming. Remember, I had missed our first game in DC earlier that year, so now I got to play in front of everyone — the USAir Arena was as close as any NBA basketball arena was to Newport News and Hampton. My mom stayed in my hotel. I went out that night until late. After I had gotten to bed, my mom came and woke my ass up.
“They killed your man!”
I didn’t know what she was talking about. “Biggie dead.”
I got up, shook. I had watched him record, gotten him my shoes. He’d been a model for us as we’d plotted getting out the shit. It was crushing. If anyone had been prepared for death, it was me. From all the dudes I’d seen get killed, Tony Clark and too many others to count, it’s fucked-up to say I was used to it. But I was used to it.
Still, when you get the fuck out, like I did, and like Biggie had done before me, and it still goes that way? I thought about that shit all the time after that. And I always remembered when I was a kid, in Glen Gardens, with a barrel pressed to my head.
Right before he died, they released “Hypnotize,” the first single off Ready to Die. Then at the end of that month, after his death, the “Hypnotize” video came out. It was so fucking epic, filmed with speedboats and helicopters in Miami Bay. The man had made it, was doing it over the top, just crushing it. Before it all got snatched away. They said he never got to watch the whole video. He definitely never got to see the whole album released. But if you watch that video close, you can see it. He’s wearing the motherfucking Questions.
Excerpted from Misunderstood: A Memoir by Allen Iverson. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books/13a, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.
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