Philadelphia 76ers legend Allen Iverson is considered to be one of the most groundbreaking players in NBA history.
His skills, unique style, and devastating crossover–to go with his 6’0” frame–put him in the same breath with some of the all-time greats. Iverson went toe-to-toe with many of them, and never backed down from a fight. The Answer also liked to party and have a couple of drinks.
In 2002 following the Philadelphia 76ers’ playoff exit against the Boston Celtics in the Garden, Iverson left the court, and while making his way to the locker room, he stopped a Celtics ball boy, handed him $2000 and told him to buy as much beer as he could for the team bus.
That ball boy was Chris Mannix, who is a senior writer at Sports Illustrated today. For ‘Off the Record‘, he shared this incredible story some time ago.
“Allen Iverson comes up to me, gives me a bunch of money and says ‘I want you to buy as much Corona as possible and put it on the bus. I take his money and probably pocketed some of it, and went up to the liquor store. There is no liquor store inside the Boston Garden or across the street from the Boston Garden, so I take a hand truck all the way up Causeway Street to about a quarter of a mile, and took it and bought all the Corona I could.
The problem was, the game was getting out. So I push the hand truck back up the hill and people are taking boxes of Corona of the top. They’re just taking it… Finally, we get into the protected parking lot, and I get there and was like ‘great, I still got plenty left, he’s not going to have a problem with that’. But then the Celtics were coming out of the tunnel and into the parking lot themselves and they’re in a great mood and are like ‘ohhh we just won, we’re advancing’. So they start taking cases of Corona of the top.
So I finally get back to the Sixers bus, and I think it was close to $2000 that he gave me, I probably had about four cases of beer with me. So I put it on the bus and he goes ‘how many are there?’ ‘Four!’ ‘That’s what $2000 bought?’ And I’m like ‘yeaaaaaah…’
I think he was in such a foul mood that he didn’t really argue as long as there was something on that bus for him, he took it.”
