How Allen Iverson Turned Me Off the NBA

Let me paint a picture for you, high school Junior, who for arguments sake we will call Allen.

Small, quick, mediocre at best as far as the boys basketball team goes. Shows up to practice every single day and puts his heart and soul into the workout, but doesn't get playing time. Allots not only his body but his time, to a team he doesn't even get to play for, despite having academic commitments to honor as well. 

Now let me paint another, less appealing, picture for you. A man whose sole commitment in life is to basketball, who is paid millions of dollars to play a game, cutting practice.

There is something inescapably wrong with that picture.

That hideous picture I just painted for you is the sole reason why I will no longer watch the NBA. Overpaid, over-glorified, over-pampered punks who cant even attend practice when they are paid to do so.

Pardon my french but that is bullshit.

Allen Iverson gets paid 22 million dollars a year. That's 60,274 dollars a day, which means that in a weekend he makes 6 figures, more than a middle to upper class family makes in a year. For 60 thousand a day I'd be on a basketball court for 12 hours minimum, but your boy gets to skip a two-hour practice?

Iverson spits into the faces of the fans every time he dodges practice (this is the third time). Especially when any fan can look to college or high school basketball, where players make practice every single day despite strenuous academic commitments.

Oh and let me fill you in on how much those players make a year, zero, which brings their daily earnings to a mere zero.

It is an insult to professional sport, I don't care if it's Thanksgiving, Christmas day, New Years or the New Millennium, if your being paid to play and you have a scheduled practice you better be at that practice.

The most disheartening aspect of the whole thing, the "hefty fine" described by coach Michael Curry, will be no greater than 25,000$. Meaning that AI will still receive 35,274 dollars minimum this Thanksgiving for skipping practice, what an incentive to make every holiday practice right?

Do everyone a favor Mr. Iverson, either go to practice day in and day out and show some pride like those collegiate and high school  athletes, or donate that daily income to the NCAA or the high school athletics association.

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