HE'S JUST PRACTICED, hard, for a couple of hours and Allen Iverson is tired. He is sitting courtside, seemingly sullen. But, suddenly, a jolt of energy winds through his system. His eyes widen as if he's just seen a sliver of an opening in the lane and his mouth spreads into an infectious smile. Allen Iverson has been asked about his kids.

"Deuce has a stomach flu," he says, referring to 1-year-old Allen II, whom Iverson nursed back to health a few days before. "I had to make sure he was okay. Now, Tiaura, all she wants to do is go to Chuck E. Cheese all the time. It is loud in my house. There's a whole lotta noise going on. These kids run around all the time, tearing up the house, driving their mom crazy. Tiaura, I don't even have to say anything to her. I just give her a look and she knows: 'I better calm myself down.'"

The words come rushing out, full of affection and pride. You expect to see photos any minute, only his uniform doesn't come equipped with pockets.

This Iverson, the one who talks earnestly about how Deuce and 4-year old Tiaura have "matured me, made me want to make better and smarter decisions, so I can set a good example for them;" the one who has kept a Boys and Girls Club from shutting its doors on the youngsters in his hometown; the one who visits sick children in the hospital so long as his charitable acts are far removed from the glare of the camera; the one who is an accomplished, sensitive artist off the court as well as on, this Iverson, as associates from Pat Croce on down attest, has failed to make it through the media filter. This is the Allen Iverson we've hardly gotten to know.

Last summer, Iverson and some friends from back home in Hampton, Va., vowed to save the Boys and Girls Club. He set up The Crossover Foundation and put on charity games, tournaments, parties: anything to raise money and to call attention to the Club's financial woes. "We got started late, but the effort was good," he says. "And it was just a start. I just want those little kids, who aren't fortunate enough to have the resources other kids have. . . I want them to know they have some place safe to go, you know what I'm saying?"

It is, in fact, with children that Iverson is most comfortable. They don't judge or condemn or heckle. He visits them in the hospitals, but he doesn't like to talk about such compassionate acts. "That's not why I do it, " he explains. "It's not fair to go see a sick kid and he's gotta have all these cameras around him, like I'm visiting him to make me look good in the media. I'm just there to make the kid feel good."

It's easy to forget that Iverson is not much more than a kid himself, one who happens to be a basketball prodigy. But basketball was only one of his childhood dreams. He and his friends, passionate rappers all, grew up fantasizing about starting their own record label. Now, Iverson is in a position to make that dream a reality, too. He is in the preliminary stages of a label start-up, following in the footsteps of hoops stars such as Chris Webber, who owns Humility Records, and Shaquille O'Neal.

"These guys I grew up with, they've got a lot of talent," says Iverson, whose state-of-the-art car stereo has been playing a lot of the rapper Redman of late. "Rather than let them go out there in the music world and get jerked around, I figure, let's do it ourselves."

But producing music will never be an all-consuming vocation. Iverson is nothing if not an artist on the court; similarly, his post-NBA career will be devoted to self-expression. He is an accomplished caricaturist, always penning uproarious cartoons of family, friends, and teammates. Once his playing days are over, he'll throw himself into cartooning with the same single-minded determination that brought him his hoops dream. "The NBA's been great to me, but after I play my last game, that's it for me with basketball," he says. "That's when I'm going to start to focus on my artwork."

In the meantime, his charitable acts, the record label, and the cartoons will remain on the back burner while he wreaks havoc on NBA arena hardwood floors. For now, basketball is his primary passion, right up there with his family. If there's any doubt that Allen Iverson is, in fact, an exemplar of family values, just look under the Sixers' basket during any home game, where his mother, Ann, wears an Iverson jersey, holds aloft a sign that reads "That's My Boy!" and is a nonstop cheerleading squad of one from opening tip to final buzzer.

Or check him out after the game, in the bowels of the First Union Center, where, as he emerges from the locker room, Tiaura will rush into his arms and, suddenly, the placid tough-guy expression is gone, and he's cooing and tickling and kissing his daughter. "People make mistakes, man," Iverson says when asked to comment on the stark contrast between his private self and public image. "But as long as I can look Deuce, Tiaura and my family in their eyes and know they know I'm not a bad guy, that's what really matters to me."