Allen Iverson: The Anti-NBA Player Who Changed The Game

What immediately comes to your mind when you hear the name, "Allen Iverson"? If you are anything like me, you think of the number of articles portraying him as an athlete who fell from grace due to his poor financial management. I'm here to make you think of Allen Iverson in a different light, as a non-conformist who single-handedly changed the NBA forever. I enjoy basketball, but I honestly watch it cluelessly. I do not understand how a player's statistics define them as a "good" or "trash" player, what a rebound is, or why players are so dramatic when falling to the ground whenever another player taps them, but I do understand the cultural impact a player can make on a community. That's all that matters, right?

Even though basketball is not truly on my radar, Netflix is. One day, I decided to watch the documentary "Iverson," which is about the life of the famed basketball player, Allen Iverson. I wanted to learn more about his career and rise to fame since I only knew about Iverson's apparent fall. I quickly learned that Allen Iverson was much more than a basketball player, he was a game-changer.

Allen Iverson was found guilty in 1993 of three charges of maiming by mob at the age of 18, despite Iverson and friends stating that he left before the race-fueled mob in the local bowling alley began to form. Iverson did not allow this to stop him from achieving his professional sporting dreams and ended up playing for Georgetown University and eventually the Philadelphia 76ers. What was interesting about Iverson was that he did not look like any other basketball player at the time with his multiple tattoos, freshly done cornrows, and baggy shorts. Of course, the media gravitated towards him.

As a kid who used sports as his way out of his neighborhood, Iverson only wanted to portray the image that he knew. He was not a "clean-cut" guy who preferred tailored suits. He preferred baggy T-shirts and excessive amounts of jewelry. Iverson also did not mind snapping back at reporters when he felt disrespected. Why be polite when you feel disrespected? Iverson brought hip hop culture to a bigger mainstream audience through basketball. In return, Iverson was considered "a thug" and an inconvenience to the NBA as a player who was more concerned with how his image reflected his own personality compared to how his image reflected the league. Professional basketball players throughout the league were inspired by Iverson to wear clothes that they actually wanted to wear during their postgame interviews.

The then commissioner of the NBA, David Stern, saw things getting out of the league's hands and decided to implement an NBA dress code in 2005, which could be seen as a form of indirect retaliation to Allen Iverson himself. By implementing this code, which banned depictions of hip hop/Black culture, David Stern basically whitewashed the NBA which is an industry that profits off of a huge majority of Black players. How could the NBA player make the league any money if they were aligning themselves with the drugs, guns, and street violence associated with hip hop culture? Allen Iverson had a sneaker deal with Reebok and some body spray, but he probably would have been able to receive more endorsements if he did not appear as "threatening" to the white executives of these major corporations.

The depiction of Black men in America who enjoyed playing their rap music loud, having shiny new rims, wearing oversized basketball jerseys, and being blinged out in loads of jewelry was threatening to white America and still is. They were scared because these Black men were not trying to conform. They were proud of their upbringing and wanted to bring the whole hood with them to the top. These men served as examples of what could be to the little boy in the hood born in a broken home with a single mother who had to sacrifice daily in order to make sure that there was enough to eat. Allen Iverson refused to let that part of his life go and in turn, ended up becoming one of the most notorious players in the NBA. I mean the man crossed Michael Jordan, when could you ever? He definitely had the skills for the game, but did he have the "right" attitude for the NBA? You decide.

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Originally posted on Odyssey Online: May 2016