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| Has A.I. Finally Found the Answer? Written By: Robert Littal, Head BSO "We're talking about practice" was the line Allen Iverson uttered which became the centerpiece for what was wrong with players in the NBA. He was too selfish, he was not about team, he was too hip-hop, too street & everything that the NBA didn't want to be (but is their bread and butter). He was simply too gangsta. Fast-forward to the NBA All-Star game. Iverson is being named the MVP and the words that are used to describe Iverson are now adjectives such as mature, a team player, passionate, and a changed man. So what has changed about the poster boy for the bad boy image of the NBA? Not much. You are looking at the same AI who was talking about "practice", but now the light is being shined in a different direction. The media has a fickle way of determining who should be loved and who should be hated. Similar to the guy who chases after the pretty girl, but once he gets her decides to move on the next pretty girl, the media is in constant search of the next bad guy. Iverson is no longer the flavor of the month bad guy, because they now know what any intelligent, open minded person has seen from the beginning; AI was never a bad guy. Similar to Terrell Owens, Iverson's work ethic has never been in questioned. Pound for pound, he is widely considered the toughest player in the league, but sometimes like Owens he doesn't think before he speaks or speaks the God honest truth when everyone wants to hear what is politically correct. Iverson is married to his high school sweetheart and is a loving father and hasn't had any run-ins with the law for a very, very long time. Nor has he been caught in a hotel with a woman that was not his wife unlike NBA's "previous goldenboy". If he were Tim Duncan, he would be considered the Man of the Year. He will never be universally accepted because he doesn't look the part, but slowly but surely he has won people over. Thanks to Ron Artest and others, AI is on the back burner of the "bad" guys. You could say to the media he is the best of the "hip-hop" wunderkinds. So when people say that they have noticed such a dramatic change in Iverson, what they are really saying is they have closed their eyes to the stereotypes of Iverson and when they opened their eyes again they saw what was always there, a MVP. |
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