It's time the 76ers bid adieu to the team's biggest draw A player agent with an A-list roster of clients -- one with a superb reputation for his ability to douse client brush fires and an uncommon talent for steadying the blood pressure of most general managers -- was asked the other day how he would advise Allen Iverson in the wake of his latest tête-à-tête with Larry Brown. The agent thought about it for a few seconds before emitting a noise that was somewhere between bewilderment and exasperation. "I wouldn't," the agent finally said. "I don't know if there's anything left to say to Allen anymore. I think the opportunity to manage Allen or guide Allen has passed." Seems we've been down this road before, and indeed, now it is beginning to look like a dead end. Penetrating the surface of this relationship between Brown and Iverson always has been as easy as digging through a cinder block with a plastic spoon, and now it seems irreparable in the wake of the coach's recent remarks. Brown turned down an offer to coach the University of North Carolina and promptly used the occasion to announce to the world that his best player has become impossible to work with, that he has serious doubts as to whether this will ever change and that trying to explain responsibility to Iverson is like explaining cholesterol to an egg. He has voiced these concerns before, even to Iverson himself, but neither the kid's actions nor words would seem to indicate that he gets it. Any criticism about his commitment is met with a stone-faced mask of teenage apathy and repressed anger he has no idea what to do with. Iverson is always showing the world something that says, "Don't push." Then he issues the usual mindless rejoinder about how he is being disrespected by the organization. Brown, who calculated that Iverson was tardy or a no-show for 70 games or practices last year, bridles at the self-pity act. "I wonder what your relationship would be with any employee you might have if he doesn't choose to come to work on time, doesn't choose to come to work at all, doesn't choose to do the things everybody else in the organization does and then says he's upset with the way he's being treated," the coach said. "If he wants to be on time to practice and practice on a daily basis and follow the rules all the other players follow, then he's not going to have a problem with me. But if he continues to be in a situation where he's late, doesn't practice, doesn't do the things other players do, then it's going to be a problem." The timing of all this should tell you something. Brown's public edict comes at the one moment in his career that he finally seems to be comfortable with who he is and where he is. And it comes at a time when the Sixers are in the best position to move Iverson out, even if there are base-year compensation issues to deal with in the event of a trade. We're just wondering whether Brown, being the adult in this relationship, is going to make one last attempt to reach out to his star before he puts team president Pat Croce in a difficult position that forces him to trade the one guy who fills his building. Even John Calipari seems to think further discussion is fruitless: "It's not easy when someone is asking you to do things that you'd rather not do and asking you to do those things every day," the former Sixers assistant told the Boston Globe. "Therein lies the issue. Allen doesn't want to deal with it, and Larry ain't gonna change. The light bulb just hasn't gone on yet for Allen." Iverson proved that again last week, when teammate Eric Snow called for an informal workout to coincide with the Sixers' summer league camp. Nine players showed up. There were three absentees: free agent Toni Kukoc, the insufferably indifferent Matt Geiger and Iverson. "He's still a good kid, has a great heart and everybody likes him," Snow said, and all of that is irrefutable. "The things being discussed are major in the big picture but are definitely things that can be fixed, that can be controlled." But that hasn't happened and probably won't as long as Iverson remains in Philadelphia. Recalcitrant stars are nothing new -- just remember how Chris Webber played himself out of Washington. Webber didn't play to his potential. He experienced similar Iversonian conflicts between respecting authority and showing his friends that he was his own man. He went over the top more than once, notably when he told owner Abe Pollin to stick it when asked to help promote the new arena. Now that Webber has grown up in Sacramento -- proof that people can change -- he probably regrets how he spent his years in Washington. Iverson will do the same if or when he's sent packing, but sometimes that's how these things go. Right now he has some irreconcilable differences he cannot work out with his coach, and they may never work out. A change for both player and team seems the only way out. The time has come for the Sixers, if they value their coach, to make a move.		Author Dave D'Alessandro   Source Sporting News   Return to Articles