Funny thing happened in Philly Last month. Not funny Like ha, ho funny; more ironic than humorous. The Source Sports crew (two people really) were Listening to 610 WIP-AM sports talk radio on our way to the

First Union Center; the same night that the final players were named to the US 2000 Olympic basketball team. Of course, Allen Iverson, Philly’s pint-size 2-guard-who Led the NBA in scoring Last year and is Leading again this year-wasn't mentioned. callers had been on the air all day, saying everything from, "Allen’s too good a player to be Left off that team," to, "They needed a pure shooter from the outside and [Bucks guard] Ray Allen is much more suited to that role than Iverson," to, "Allen is a thug with cornrows, and until he cuts his hair and gets a decent wardrobe, he should never represent the United States anywhere." It's that Last opinion that we had a problems with.

"We have this problem with Al and the status quo. It's the we'll-break-you-before- you-break-us mentality It's the Frank Rizzo, you'll-get-tired-of- gettin'-locked up-before-we-gettired-of-locking-you-up. Somebody's got to step up and be The Man."

-Darren from South Philly

The Sixers just manhandled the Golden State Warriors, 113-92. Nothing out of the ordinary about that-the Warriors suck. But Allen Iverson found himself talking to the media Longer than usual tonight. The 20 to 25 white male reporters sweatin' him wanted to get into The League's Leading scorer's head. They wanted to hear him say he was hurt and mad and pissed and frustrated after word had come from above that he wasn't added to the Olympics team. They wanted him to say that his cornrows and his image swayed the Olympic Committee. They wanted him to say it.

Al, how do you feel about not being picked?

"Y'aLL know," Iverson answered, half smiling.

But are you bitter; Al?

"Nope. God just didn't have it in His plans for me to be on that team. Simple as that."

But do you think. - -

"Look, y'aLL are tryin' to get me to say something I don't wanna get into," Iverson said, shaking his head and still smiling. "We all know why I wasn't picked-Let's Leave it at that. I'm not mad at nobody."

This went on for a while, and for a change, it was the reporters who grew tired of talking, and the small crowd dispersed. Allen was stepping up and being The Man.

Finally given some space to breathe, he begins to Leave the Locker room. Then, he spots us. "Whaddup, dawg? We ready for tomorrow, right?" he said, referring to a photo shoot we had set up at his crib for the next day. As we small talked our way to the exit, a handful of reporters-not knowing who we were-followed closely behind, micro-cassette recorders and notepads in hand. Perhaps we were a couple of home-

boys from Iverson's posse/entourage' hood, they must have figured. Or maybe we were members of Iverson's ever-expanding extended family. They didn't know, and Like any good reporter; they stayed close to what seemed Like a "developing story."

Eventually, our media credentials gave us away-we were one of them. But not really. Iverson, in their eyes, seemed to have Let down his guard. "I look at your face different," Iverson explained to us the next day. "I Look at you Like, 'Man, what you wanna talk about? I'LL give you whatever you need. I gave these motherf*** 45 minutes-whatchu need, an hour?' I wanna be able to look myself in the mirror and say, 'I gave them everything they needed.' [Now] I'm gonna' give my Black man what he need, simple as that."

"It's hard to accept a guy like that. I mean, you see the clothes, you see the guys he hangs out with, and you gotta think, Is this really somebody that we want on the Olympic team?"

-Dan from Cherry HiLL, New Jersey

Allen Iverson's deadliest weapon is not his crossover-it's his tongue. He tells it Like it is whether you Like it or not. It's gotten him in trouble with the media a thousand times, largely because his tone makes no apologies. He says he never does

it to be hurtful or malicious, but knows that because he speaks his mind, he is often misunderstood.

Iverson surprised even us with his veracity and his candor. Perhaps he felt at home with us, or maybe it was because he was at home, a spacious spot in BaLa Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, he just moved into Last December. "This is just a starter crib," he says. "We're building the real house."

What he wouldn’t tell those beat writers, he freely told us. And the truth is, Iverson would Love to have been named to that 12-man Olympic squad, but it's not the end-all, be-all for him. He says being a part of the 76ers is bigger than any Olympic team, because that's his dream come true. Had he chosen to delve into the X's and 0's of why he's not pressed to be an Olympian this time around, he’d been roped into a conversation that would have taken all night. So he chose to dance with reporters until they got dizzy

"They want me to be bitter;" he says. "But I'm happy to be playing with a

team that I wanna play for; and I Look at [not being picked] as something God don't want me to do right now. And it's as simple as that."

That's one of Al's favorite sound bites-next to "I play every game Like it's my Last." He uses that one after a big win, and after a disappointing Loss. But after sitting with him and his people, we now believe his response to be more than just a quote he's cozy with. "A Lot of kids grow up with dreams of being on an Olympic team-not kids from the inner city, not kids from the ghetto," explains Gary Moore, Iverson's personal assistant who has been Like a father to him since he was eight years old. "At-risk kids dream to one day grow up and be in the NBA-not to be on the Olympic team-so it's not a tremendous disappointment for him."

The committee is fooling itself if it thinks kids around the world aren't already hip to Iverson. "I don't think [the Olympic Committee] understands Allen's significance internationally," says Henry "Que" Gaskins, who works for Reebok managing the Iverson brand but could pass for Al's older brother. "Reebok does an international tour every summer with Al. The first year we went to South America, the second year we visited nine countries in Europe. We had young Asians and young Spanish kids rockin' Allen's tattoos, his jersey, his shoes. He really is an international star."

As Iverson puts it, his life right now exceeds even his wildest dreams when he was growing up in poverty in Newport News, Virginia. The odds were stacked against him the moment his 15-year-old mother gave him life in 1976. Everybody told him only one in a billion makes it to the NBA, but he kept telling himself and them, "'Not me. I'm different. I'm gonna prove 'em all wrong.' Where I'm from, every goddamn kid thinks that they gon' make it to The League-football, basketball, baseball, singer; rapper-everybody thinks that now," he says passionately. "Look, I'm from Newport News. I never had nothin' for 20 years. I've been incarcerated. I mean, the odds were so far against me, and then for me to come into The League already carrying baggage.. just for me to make it here is the ultimate for me."

"I just think the guy's arrogant. I mean, anybody who makes the kind of money he's getting should go out of their way to fit in with everybody else."

-Dianne on the mobile

Iverson wants you to understand that he'd love to an Olympian; it would be more icing on a cake that's already iced down. "I mean, there's a million people in my projects that wanna be where I am," he says. "I'm fortunate enough just to be here. That's just like if you're Michael Jackson, and you know you're the craziest as far as pop [music] go. Can't nobody touch you. And then, they select the Best Pop Artist, and for whatever reason, you wasn't selected. But everybody out there knows that as far as pop music, Michael Jackson is the best. So it ain't no thing..."

So you heard it here first: Allen Iverson is the Michael Jackson of basketball-the best player in The League, but nobody knows it. Still, Iverson is sympathetic to folks-both

White and Black-who don't understand him. He knows there are people who can't put a finger on why they have a problem with him. And Iverson understands that. He also understands that what they see-the cornrows, the dress, the jewels, the swagger; the baggage, his boys-immediately gives them a reason to form an opinion, either way. The media has played a huge part in why America is divided on Allen Iverson. And it's not just because he hails from the ghetto. If that were the case, America would have a problem with almost every pro athlete. Love him or fear him, Iverson's Sixers are slated to appear on NBC and TNT 19 times this season (compared to just two last year). Why? Because that's who the people want to see.

"All I'm doin' is being what I always wanted to be and doing the stuff that I always wanted [to do]," Iverson says. "And, I'm doing the things that every friend I had wanted to do. That's why I know it's so easy for kids to relate to me. I don't ever want to give that away. I won't ever change that. Just being who I am, f**k it.,'

And that, he believes, makes him real, not a made-up superstar only corporate America can relate to. Michael Jordan never had to explain himself like Al because his look, his style, and his diction didn't beg the question: Why are you the way you are? Allen was blessed to realize his talents and dribble his way out of poverty. And now everyone around him-from his family to his friends-will reap the benefits of his blessing. That's just the way he looks at his success. "I Look at my kids, my mom, my friends, and I don't ever want them to Look at me and say, 'Man, you've changed. I can't recognize who you are anymore.' I don't give a damn-I love playing in the NBA because it's real to me. And I'd be lying if [I said] I wished I wasn't doing this."

"Whether or not like his hair or his jewelry or his clothes, doesn't mean anything. nothing. Young people like it and young people are the audience of this game."

-Steve Fredericks, 610 WIP

Iverson corrected us when we said he walked into The League as a "bad boy" in 1996. He said that even though he had bag-age, America had given him a clean slate. that all changed on December 21, 1996, 'hen Philadelphia faced Jordan and the Bulls. "The media] wrote that I said I didn’t respect Mike and I didn't say that," he plains. "I love Michael Jordan to death. He was the one who made me play the game. But them people didn't start tearing me down and bothering me until that happened. They were lookin' at me like, 'You don't respect the king?'

"I was like, 'I didn't say I didn't respect him.' [During the game, Jordan] was like- and he wasn't even talkin' to me-if y'all don't respect nobody, y'all gon' respect us.' "And I was like, 'I don't gotta respect nobody-not out here.'

'" respect [him] as a man, but once we're on the same dance floor once you over respect somebody, the battle's already lost."

That was classic Iverson Misunderstood, Vol I. Every time he would commit a sin, the media took that as a green-light to dig into his storied past. "I couldn't believe people were talking about me-they were killin' me, man over this one, single incident," he says. While Allen talked candidly about his past, clearly every one of his hurdles has shaped him. Sitting on his bed, eating a chicken sandwich with a new, blue Yankee on, Iverson told us about his four-month stay on a Virginia prison farm-on a charge for which he was eventually exonerated-as if it were yesterday, naming COs and ex-inmates with-out having to jar his memory.

"We had one part of the jail called The Jungle-that's for all the kids that was my age, ' he says. "The old heads didn't want me to be in The Jungle, so I was in the part where people was on work-release. My Dad spent 15, damn near 20 years in jail, so he had [made the Iverson name infamous] even before me. I had to walk through The Jungle in order to get to the mess hall. On that side of the jail, it was just crazy. everybody screamin', shit thrown from here to there, motherf**kas settin' shit on fire, all kinds of shit. Real shit. When I got there, I was like, 'Damn, I know ain't nothin' pussy about me. I know I can handle myself,' but I never felt I was ever in danger."

"He does not portray thuggery at all and he's not a gangster He's just a guy who likes to dress a certain way and likes to have some jewelry and likes to have his hair in cornrows and likes to get tattoos. What the hell does that have to do with playing on the Olympic team? And while everybody's worried about his clothes, somebody needs to say some-thing about some of these players that wear lime green and electric-blue suits."

-Kevin from Mount Airy

At 24, Iverson proudly acknowledges that he is the backbone of his family. The primary breadwinner. The go-to man at home and with the Sixers. Philly pays him a little more than $11 mill. a year while his Reebok contract slips him another $5 (yes) mill. As he flourishes, so will his family-his fiancée since forever Tawanna Turner and their two children-two-year-old Allen II, a.k.a. Deuce, and five-year-old Tiaura. Deuce, who has a gray three-quarter length mink and some ice to match Dad's, sticks to his father like glue. He watches Daddy's every move and gets grumpy if Allen even hints that he's going near the front door. Tiaura seems to have a lot of Daddy in her-friendly, talkative and a little fresh, saying to no one in particular after she'd been outside watching her Dad get photographed: "I'm gain' back in the house; I'm freezing my ass Off."

At home, Al feels like The Don, and why not? He's been through the jungle. He knows how it feels to go home hungry. No heat. No water. He watched his beloved great-grandmother die because she didn't have the money to buy medicine to stay alive. "Just shit, like, that makes you a man," he says. "And I know [the media) knows that and they understand, but keep throwin' darts."

"We all have a bad guy that looms when we curse, when we get angry, when we get impatient," asserts the skydiving, motor-cycle-riding Sixers president, Pat Croce. "But Allen's no different than anyone else, and he's not a bad person-not a sellout-that's why you respect the guy. He lives by what he says, he wall's his talk. You never have to worry about him tellin' you bullshit."

Iverson is not bitter. Not mad at the world. Doesn't walk around with a chip on his shoulder. He wants everyone to realize that there are different scripts to the professional athlete-he just happens to subscribe to one that's not so popular. "You can take the kid out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the kid," is his credo. If the media isn't careful, it will find that Allen Iverson will go away and never come back. No more interviews; no further questions. He will, in essence, become Bill Russell-angry, distant and full of regret. But he's not there yet. "After it's all over I'm through with basketball," he says. "When it's all over I wanna exhale, you know? I just wanna look myself in the mirror and say, 'I won a championship, and I did it my way."'

"His on-the-court image projects nothing but excellence-being the most exciting player in the NBA today That's not bad. His style of dress, shouldn't it be his business? If he was an attorney and had to stand in front of a judge and represent a client, then his image would be inappropriate, but he's a ballplayer"-Fredericks