The little-known story behind Iverson’s practice rant

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Fourteen years ago Saturday, Allen Iverson sat in front of the media covering his Philadelphia 76ers and said the word “practice” 22 times.

The now-legendary rant encapsulated Iverson for all that he was — funny, proud, indignant, exasperating, misunderstood.

But like many things associated with Iverson, the real story behind his words is darker and more complicated than is often remembered.

The 2001-2002 season was an across-the-board disappointment for the 76ers. One year after Iverson won a scoring title and willed Philadelphia within three wins of a championship, the Sixers barely finished above .500 and were knocked out by the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs.

The contentious relationship between Iverson and Sixers head coach Larry Brown bubbled over repeatedly throughout the season, and four days after their playoff exit, the situation between the two again came to a head when Iverson was late to a meeting.

As chronicled in “Not A Game,” a 2015 Iverson biography by Kent Babb, the player and his coach had a shouting match outside of the team facility that only abated when Brown told Iverson he wasn’t going to trade him — that the two would remain in Philadelphia for at least another year.

It was exactly what Iverson wanted to hear, and he agreed to a news conference that evening to confirm the story to the team’s beat reporters in a sort of exit interview.

But when he …

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