This July, the Worldwide Leader in Sports descended on Georgetown to fete Alonzo Mourning, the Hoya basketball legend and recently retired NBA star. Mourning’s laudatory interview with ESPN’s Rick Reilly was as much a celebration of Georgetown as the big man, with basketball luminaries past and present turning out to pay their respects and share their anecdotes.
Fellow Hoya great Allen Iverson had a much quieter Georgetown homecoming earlier this year. Rather than Gaston Hall, Iverson visited the Hospital to receive an examination for an injured back that would sideline him for the rest of the NBA season. Conveniently, that injury allowed AI to stay away from the Pistons, with which his relationship had hopelessly deteriorated, and go quietly into the offseason and free agency.
As Mourning takes his post-retirement victory lap, Iverson has suffered through one of his most difficult years professionally in a career that has been full of controversy. After being traded to the Pistons last November, he quickly soured at the prospect of spending more time on the sidelines. Iverson threatened to retire rather than come off the bench, only to be preempted by his injury.
Now a free agent, Iverson finds himself a persona non grata around the league—caught in a perfect storm of his advancing age, chemistry concerns, and newfound financial restraint by team owners. Iverson is a 10-time All-Star and has the fifth highest scoring average in the history of the NBA, but the Answer is a man without a basketball home.
With this just the latest saga in what has been a career of controversy for Iverson, it might be hard to imagine him one day taking a seat in Gaston Hall for his own Homecoming episode. But Mourning was not always the ideal citizen/basketball player that sat on stage with Reilly. While playing at Georgetown, Mourning associated with drug kingpin Rayful Edmond III before being set straight by John Thompson Jr. And before coming back to the Heat and winning an NBA championship, ‘Zo first forced his way out of New Jersey and Toronto by acting like an Iverson-esque malcontent.
Still, in hindsight these seem like momentary lapses for a man who is renowned for his charity work and for fighting back after a kidney transplant to become an NBA champion. That will be what he is remembered for.
Iverson’s legacy is less clear. Many who have already written him off assume it will be his tattoos, arrests, and contempt for practice. But all the pundits who have for so long decried AI as a thug and symbol of what is wrong with the NBA ignore another part of the man.
While less publicized than Mourning’s charitable work, Iverson has given back to the community his whole career. For years, Iverson has hosted an annual charity softball game, and he runs a scholarship program for underprivileged kids from the same Virginia community where he grew up.
The latter did draw some media attention this summer, when Iverson became emotional at a press conference after giving out two scholarships. Fighting back tears, he described the pain he feels for being defined by his missteps and not by the good that he does.
Those who know him understand his feelings. John Thompson Jr., who once called Iverson his “prodigal son,” told the Washington Post, “I always thought that Allen was a person that people didn’t know he was.”
Now that he has reached what appears to be his professional nadir, perhaps it is time for people to learn who the real Allen Iverson is. After years of clashing with coaches and management, AI will likely have to settle for a small contract from a perennial doormat like Memphis or Charlotte. For the first time in a long time, the Answer has something to prove on the court.
Only the coming season will tell if Iverson can replicate Mourning and overcome adversity to have a successful second act of his NBA career. If so, perhaps the prodigal son can one day have his own Georgetown Homecoming.
If this summer is any indication, Iverson understands these stakes. He has rededicated himself to basketball and is itching to show the world that the Answer is not finished. As he posted on Twitter last week, “I have had a year to get ready, my back is fine now don’t worry. When you see me again you will think that I am fresh out of Georgetown!”
