Basketball, Culture, & the Magic of Allen Iverson

Iverson has been immortalized in Philadelphia, a reminder of the impact he had on basketball and American culture at large

I remember my first pair of basketball shoes that were endorsed by an athlete. They weren’t Air Jordans, or Kobe’s, or even a pair of T-Macs. They were a pair of Reebok Answer 3’s, or more well known as Allen Iverson’s shoe. People that were teenagers in the late 1990s and early 2000s remember Allen Iverson vividly, he was a phenomenon both in basketball and culturally.

Recently, Iverson had a statue erected in his honor on the Philadelphia 76ers Legends Walk outside the team’s practice facility. Iverson is now immortalized next to other 76ers legends like Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, Wilt Chamberlain, and Julius Erving. The moment has made me think back on Iverson’s career, how unique he was, and how he impacted the game and culture of basketball more than any player in recent memory.

The Player

The Georgetown Hoyas are most remembered in the history of college basketball as a team that experienced their peak in the 1980s and 1990s under the guidance of legendary coach John Thompson…