For most of John Thompson’s career at Georgetown, the Hoyas were defined by big men: Patrick Ewing. Dikembe Mutombo. Othella Harrington.
Yet near the end of his career, he guided the career of a revelatory player of wondrous talent who was only 6-0: Alan Iverson.
Iverson was nearly kept out of college basketball when a high school incident in a bowling alley saw him face several very serious charges. He was accused of hitting a woman in the head with a chair but video later cleared him. However, he served four months before Virginia governor Doug Wilder granted him clemency.
Everyone knew his talent was transcendent but after the ugly (and false) charges, scholarship offers largely dried up. Thompson offered him and soon became a Hoya. And young Iverson was incredible. Check out these clips from the 1996 NCAA tournament, where Iverson was clearly on another level talent wise.
Stephen Curry and Kyrie Irving took the game in other directions and currently, you don’t really see little guards make a living out of challenging big guys in the paint. Iverson did though, and while that wasn’t his only talent, he did it brilliantly.
Quite simply, in nearly 80 years of NBA Basketball, we’ve seen one Iverson so far. We may never see his like again.
