Bubbachuck was looking like a damned Ethiopian bodybuilder. That's what he likes to call himself when he's shirtless, the bones of his wispy upper body jutting out at sharp angles. Allen Iverson without a shirt is a striking sight; he does not have the physical presence one would expect from a man who regularly challenges NBA behemoths under the boards and in the lane, men a foot taller and in some cases nearly twice as heavy. He's listed at six feet, 165 pounds, but on this May 2001 morning, in the bowels of his team's practice facility, he appeared willowy thin. A buck-fifty and maybe five-eleven, tops -- somebody who could easily be mistaken for a rambunctious ballboy, rather than a man who was about to be named the National Basketball Association's Most Valuable Player.
On this day that would name him, in his words, "the best in the world at what I do," Iverson knew how the accolade would be spun in the media. He was having none of it. He knew it would be presented as his redemption, even though he saw it as just another moment of vindication, another in a series of "I told you so" moments.
That is why his thoughts were strictly on those whom he never felt the need to prove anything to: the crew from back home. Iverson was raised on the rough streets of Newport News, Virginia, a small Southern city with a strong migratory connection to New York City. On those streets throughout the 1980s and early '90s, he'd brashly tell whoever would listen that he'd one day star in the NBA or NFL. Older guys, guys with rap sheets and shady connections, would shake their heads and laugh, but they'd look out for him, too -- because they saw a prodigy in the making, someone they could help make it out.
Still bare-chested, Iverson eyed two outfits laid out before him. His business adviser, Que Gaskins, awaited his verdict. Gaskins had received a phone call the night before from Gary Moore, Iverson's personal assistant. Moore was the grade-school football coach who took in a twelve-year-old Bubbachuck -- an amalgam of two uncles' nicknames -- when things got crazy at home; Ann, Allen's single mother, all of fifteen years his senior, couldn't care for him. Now Moore couldn't make it back to Philly from Virginia in time for the press conference; could Que find Allen something to wear in front of the cameras?
"I just want him looking fresh and clean," Moore said.
"Well, we know he ain't wearing no suit," Gaskins said, prompting both men to laugh. Iverson's disdain for business suits was well known. "If he's going to go urban, it should be sophisticated urban."
So Gaskins laid out in front of Iverson a baby-blue velour Pelle Pelle sweatsuit and a black sleeveless Sean John ensemble. "These are phat," Iverson said, looking them over. "And I will wear them, but I ain't wearing 'em today."
Bending over and rummaging through his locker, Iverson extracted a black T-shirt recently given to him by one of his friends from back home. bad news hood check, the T-shirt boldly read in front; a list of street corners adorned the back -- the toughest spots in Newport News, the very corners where Iverson came up. There was Sixteenth Street, where the troubled Ridley Circle housing projects were located, just blocks from the Stuart Gardens Apartments, where Allen lived for a time. There was Jefferson Avenue, where the hustlers hawked their illicit wares a chest pass down from the Boys and Girls Club.
"I want all my niggas back home to see this," Iverson said, pulling the shirt on. If hip-hop culture is all about carving self-identity while maintaining your roots, then Iverson is all hip-hop culture; its defiance fuels his demeanor, both on court and off, and its music was the sound track of...
