Months Later, Rip Gets Iverson's Back

Allen Iverson's time with the Pistons was ugly. Unless you're one of those people who maintains that he destroyed basketball (which seems to be doing quite fine now, thank you), it was sad to see AI demeaned and disrespected like that.

Yes, I'd say marginalizing one of the league's all-time leading scorers and treating him like a costly inconvenience instead of a gift from above that required some imaginative coaching counts as disrespect. Oh, and it was also really disheartening to see the rest of the Pistons effectively hang him out to dry, if not actively turn against him. I thought we'd left that stuff behind when Ben Wallace went to Chicago.

Granted, I've only ever heard some of the inside dirt, but on the surface, it's a little strange to think that Iverson—generational icon, one-time King of the League, rallying point for all young black athletes sick of the media and fans judging them unfairly—could so quickly become a pariah on his team and a joke around the league.

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