Casual
LAST, JONATHAN V.
Casual WE'RE ALL PHILADELPHIANS NOW Some personal history: In 1973, the year before I was born, the Philadelphia 76ers went 9-73. It remains the worst single-season record in professional...
...It remains the worst single-season record in professional basketball...
...The Lakers are the closest thing basketball has to the Yankees...
...Then management traded Barkley for Jeff Hor-nacek...
...Just glance at their summer-league-style roster...
...There's Aaron McKie, a hard-working, lunch-pail player, Todd MacCulloch, a cerebral giant who plays within himself, Dikembe Mutombo, a defensive maestro with deep roots in his African homeland, and Allen Iverson, a pro-life, pro-marriage, Second Amendment enthusiast whose period of unfortunate incarceration left him with a profound respect for law and order...
...I admit that I was spectacularly wrong about Answer: He is a prince whose sweat smells like lavender...
...O'Neal is an oversized puppy who is difficult to dislike...
...In 1984, my mother took me to the Spectrum for the first time to see the Sixers play the New York Knickerbockers...
...They won 18 games...
...In every bar east of Los Angeles, people cheered Philadelphia and hissed the Lakers...
...I watched in disbelief as they drafted Shawn Bradley, Sharone Wright, and Jerry Stack-house, passing up Penny Hardaway, Eddie Jones, and Kevin Garnett...
...Iverson curses, spits, makes rap records, and hangs with his high school friends...
...I hate them with the fire of a thousand suns...
...In '96 I sat in surly resignation as they came perilously close to breaking the 1973 record...
...When I came to, I looked around and realized that no one loved the Sixers anymore but me...
...I wanted the Sixers to draft Shareef Abdur-Rahim in 1996 when they picked Iverson...
...For six consecutive seasons, the Sixers got worse...
...J, Julius Erving, shook my hand, gave me a grin, and signed my autograph book...
...At some point in the last three months, the rest of America fell in love with my 76ers...
...In the late '80s, the Sixers had a few entertaining seasons...
...But even though he smells good, I sure wish Iverson could have dropped 45 a game on L.A., because no matter what George Will or the editors at Southern Partisan say, there's no nobility in losing...
...My relationship with Iverson—or Answer, as he's known on the mean streets—was troubled from the start...
...Sportswriters all over the country testified admiringly to their grit and professionalism...
...The year after that, Dr...
...But Kobe Bryant is everything that is wrong with professional sports: He's a snide, pre-packaged PR concept who plays basketball only as a means to cultivate his public image...
...One night Charles Barkley and Rick Mahorn, weighing the better part of a Buick between them, cracked several ribs after bumping chests in celebration...
...The Sixers, of course, are a high-top Horatio Alger tale, and their virtues shine so bright that it's impossible for any romantic soul to see their faults...
...Los Angeles relies on the double threat of Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant...
...It was the most exciting five-game series in the history of sports...
...Since that night, matters have been difficult for us...
...They won't remember Iverson running into the maw of a defense as fearlessly as anyone since Isiah Thomas...
...I was Heathcliff, wandering the moors alone...
...He doesn't get many sneaker commercials, and it doesn't seem to bother him...
...And Kobe Bryant, the man who most craves our adoration, was shunned, while Allen Iverson, the man who couldn't care less, was canonized...
...JONATHAN V. LAST...
...Three weeks ago a plucky Sixers squad clawed their way into the NBA Finals, only to lose to the Los Angeles Lakers...
...In 1986, the team traded all- , world center Moses Malone for Cliff Robinson and a fat guy with a bum knee named Jeff Ruland...
...When people look back at the 2001 NBA season, they won't remember Eric Snow hobbling on a broken ankle, yet playing like a lion...
...J retired...
...This season the little guy led the league in points, steals, minutes, and neck tattoos...
...I like to think of him as a national-greatness two guard...
...In 1983, I sat hypnotized in front of the television as the Sixers won the world championship...
...The history books will say that the rusty Lakers were careless and lost game one, before returning to form and pounding an overmatched Philadelphia team...
...It's not a championship, but it was nice to watch the rest of America swoon over my boys the way I did when Doc first smiled at me...
...I loved Doc and the Sixers instantly and deeply...
...That winter I drank like a Russian infantryman...
...He yearns to be loved and wants so badly to be Michael Jordan that it's hard not to be embarrassed for him...
...It's not true, and it cheapens what the Sixers did...
...It wasn't his talent that bothered me, of course, it was his character—and the fact that he's six feet tall and 165 pounds after dinner at Morton's...
...There was, however, one small moral victory...
...everyone I knew had a God-mad obsession with them...
Vol. 6 • July 2001 • No. 40
