- Allen Iverson, last words

YOU WONDER why you listen sometimes because most of it is so much inane static: not looking ahead took what they gave me give the other guy credit didn't take them lightly the effort was there the season isn't over not too high not too low keeping at it keeping your head up taking them -one game at a time.

And then there was yesterday, when you couldn't help but listen, when you could barely blink as you watched.

What athlete - what athlete in the whole, entire history of

athletics in this city - showed you his heart the way Allen Iverson did yesterday? What athlete shows you his heart every time he opens his mouth the way Iverson does?

The answer is: no other athlete. And if you want to dispute that, you can begin your search now and continue until you die - but you will not find Iverson's rival.

What he said is all over this newspaper today. If you are looking for a debate on the content, look elsewhere. There is plenty of it. This is different. It is not a journalistic lie detector and it isn't a written attempt to hold up a mirror in front of Iverson's face. This is none of that. This is an appreciation, pure and simple.

Because Iverson revealed more about himself yesterday in a half-hour than Scott Rolen or John LeClair has revealed in the last half-decade. It is their choice, to be sure, and it is a choice we all should respect. Just don't pretend there isn't a difference. And don't pretend there isn't a reason why Rolen and LeClair have been respected by their fans since they've been here but Iverson has been beloved by his.

This is the reason, days like yesterday. Again, it isn't because of the words themselves. It isn't because of the topics he chose to address: 76ers coach Larry Brown, the importance (or lack thereof) of practice and weightlifting, the hurt he felt at Brown's criticisms following the Sixers' first-round playoff loss, the difficulty of having his daughter come home and wonder whether he would be traded.

It isn't the words. It is the emotions. It is the certainty that anyone who saw that news conference surely sensed - the certainty that Iverson was telling you exactly what was on his mind, unfiltered and uncensored.

It is such a rare phenomenon, this public baring of true feelings - but Iverson does it every time he talks. Yesterday got more attention - because of the issues involved, and the on-court fiasco that just occurred. But it's like this, on some level, at every Iverson interview.

You can disagree with what he's saying and still recognize that he really believes it. You can wonder where he's coming from and never have a doubt - never, ever - that the man is the genuine article.

You don't agree? He'll debate you. And as you listen to the whole thing play out, you realize that it's all happening in real time - that when Iverson talks, it is with less calculation than any athlete around.

Iverson is feisty and he is proud - and he doesn't care who knows it. Iverson is also a little bit blind to some things and a little bit thin-skinned about others - and he doesn't care who knows that, either.

You get the sense he's like the rest of us - he likes to be liked. But what makes him different from most of us is that he isn't willing to tell you what you want to hear so that you'll like him. And he makes that emphatically clear on a daily basis.

This is a risky way to live a public life. As he proved again yesterday, it apparently is the only way Iverson knows. And what it has earned him, that willingness to take those risks, is this: controversy, condemnation and scorn.

Oh, and this: a legion of fans whose devotion is unwavering, a legion of fans who think they have been allowed to see this guy's soul. Nobody else lets them, nobody else in sports, but Iverson does - and that devotion is their response.

It is so different from the norm of today - which is best portrayed in the movie "Bull Durham," in a scene in which veteran catcher Crash Davis counsels kid pitcher Nuke LaLoosh on the art of public relations.

Crash: "It's time you started working on your interviews."

Nuke: "What do I gotta do?"

Crash: "Learn your cliches. Study them. Know them. They're your friends...Write this down: 'We gotta play 'em one day at a time.' "

Nuke: "Boring."

Crash: "Of course. That's the point."

That's exactly the point. Here's hoping Allen Iverson never sees it.