Allen Iverson grew so fed up with the unending trade speculation surrounding him this summer that he bought a home in Atlanta, hoping to spare himself and his family the burden of constantly having to respond to a question The Answer simply had no answer for: Are you going to remain a Philadelphia 76er?
But even in Atlanta, Iverson discovered, fans wanted to know whenever they saw him out on the street. "It was the same thing," Iverson said, shaking his head. "I needed a getaway house, but I wasn't able to escape."
As he enters his 11th season, the 31-year-old Iverson is still a 76er, and he made it clear Friday afternoon that he would like to remain one. "I want to win a championship more than anybody in this league, but I want to win a championship in Philadelphia," Iverson said before the 76ers departed for training camp in Barcelona.
Iverson tried to convince the audience that his team would be better this season, but he also sounded as if he knew it wasn't close to being a contender. "It's the same song and dance every year," Iverson said. "I come into this press conference and say the same thing. I'll do anything it will take to win and I'll play as hard as I can play and I give it everything that I have. I think every year that I've done that."
Iverson proved that his production has yet to decline as he's gotten older. He is a coming off a season that trumped -- statistically, at least -- his MVP season of 2001 when he led the 76ers to the NBA Finals. He averaged a career-high 33.0 points with 7.4 assists and shot 44.7 percent, but the 76ers finished 38-44, losing 16 of their final 24 games, and missed the playoffs for the second time in three years. Iverson added to the miserable ending to the season when he and Chris Webber failed to emerge from the locker room on Fan Appreciation Night, the team's final home game, because they weren't playing. The no-show inspired a profane rant from 76ers President Billy King and helped put Iverson and Webber squarely on the trading block.
According to several reports, the 76ers came close to dealing Iverson to Boston in a three-team trade before the June draft. The Denver Nuggets were also believed to have been interested, reportedly offering point guard Andre Miller and one of their big men, Kenyon Martin, Marcus Camby or Nenê. But King realized that the offers for his team's franchise player were insufficient and he assured Iverson in late July that he wouldn't be traded, which finally put his star at ease.
On Friday, Iverson said he wasn't surprised that he stuck around, saying that he considered himself an "original 76er," with Julius Erving, Charles Barkley and Wilt Chamberlain. "I put myself in that category," Iverson said. "I'll have to be sent out of here. There'll never be a day that I ask to leave." The 76ers did little to improve their team in the offseason -- they added Rodney Carney in the draft, Alan Henderson in free agency and retained restricted free agents Willie Green and Shavlik Randolph -- which means that much of the burden will again fall on Iverson and Webber. In his first full season in Philadelphia, Webber's production closely resembled his career numbers, as he averaged 20.2 points and 9.9 rebounds. Iverson and Webber proved they could co-exist, but it didn't equate to team success.
The veterans both said winning a championship was all that they had left to play for. "It's taken longer than people would have thought," said Iverson, the No. 1 pick out of Georgetown in 1996.
Iverson was asked why he wanted to stay in Philadelphia, especially when the team doesn't appear close to winning a title. "I guess it's just because of the experience," Iverson said. "Everything that I've learned here. Developing into a man. All the ups and downs. Having to overcome different obstacles that I've had to overcome in my career.
"I'm a Sixer at heart and that's the way it is. I think about winning a championship. I want to have that feeling and I want to add that to my résumé. But when you know you've been somewhere for so long and you've been trying to accomplish the same goal for years and years, you just want to keep going until the wheels fall off."
