Allen Iverson delivered just like you knew he would.
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Iverson is one of 10 individuals to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield this weekend, and Thomas took time to reflect on the impact the former Sixers guard had on him and the sport itself.
“He told me I’m cut from the same cloth as him”, Thomas said.
Posthumous honorees were: 27-year National Basketball Association referee Darell Garretson; John McLendon, the first African-American coach in a professional league; Zelmo Beaty, who led Prairie View to an NAIA title in 1962 and starred in the National Basketball Association and ABA; and Cumberland Posey, who is also a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. We’ll remember the lighter moments, like when he compared his first game against Michael Jordan to Charlie Murphy meeting Rick James for the first time. I want so much for the people that stuck with me through everything, I want them to feel good about it.
“Now you can say ‘My man is solidified, ‘” Iverson said. Early on, he thanked Georgetown coach John Thompson for “saving my life”.
“(After) the incident happened in high school and all that was taken away.no other schools would recruit me anymore”, Iverson recalled.
He said he later left Georgetown only as “an OK basketball player”. Without your love & support, I would never have become the Big Diesel. “I want you to walk around and be proud of yourself that you are a Hall of Famer”. In 2000 I received my bachelor’s or my mom said she was going to whup me.
An eight-times All-Star, he played 486 games over nine years, all with the Houston Rockets, averaging 19 points and 9.2 rebounds before foot and ankle injuries forced his retirement in 2011.
He was Friday’s first inductee, an honor which he joked that should have gone to Iverson. Rocking nervously from side to side, as if he were preparing to blow by an unseen defender, he went through a long litany of “Thank-you’s” and “I-love-you’s”. “I’ve got to make sure I thank them all”. Two of LSU’s head women’s basketball coaches are also enshrined – the late Sue Gunter (2005) and Van Chancellor (2007).
“I will always consider you my family”, Yao said.
“I will always remember my times spent with the Houston Rockets as some of the best times of my life”, Yao said.
The league MVP in 2001, when he carried the 76ers to the NBA Finals and a four-time league scoring champ, Iverson remains the only player 6-foot or shorter among the NBA’s top 66 all-time scorers.
Reinsdorf, the longtime Bulls owner, chronicled what led him to purchase the Bulls in 1984. “I don’t know if Shaq agrees with that”.
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Like his father, Shaq too has a wish.
