Allen Iverson and the Virtue of Selfishness

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received—hatred. The great creators—the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors—stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.”

The main character of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead is Howard Roark, an architect who pushes the limits of his profession. He gets his start by getting kicked out of architectural school. From there he starts his own architectural firm, and even while only occasionally earning enough money to keep the lights on, he turns down clients—clients with real, life-sustaining money—who don’t share his vision.

His early buildings don’t go unnoticed; instead, they incite the fury of the architectural community. Here was someone who not only disregards the rules, but actively fights established tradition. In his own unassuming, unobstrusive way, he gives the finger to those who judge him and his work.

The 1949 movie version begins with a question that Roark answers in the affirmative: “Do you want to stand alone against the whole world?”

As if joining the conversation, in 1996 Allen Iverson entered the NBA.

He joined the league amid scouting reports that said things like “Can score on anyone at any time.” When he played, ice watered down every drink in the arena, neglected by their owners so as to not miss a single moment of AI.

He’d served hard time. He had cornrows, tattoos, a criminal record, and he embodied the hip-hop lifestyle (as far as most people knew). But what was perhaps the most shocking was the way he played the game.

Iverson’s nickname “The Answer” has never been appropriate, as it presupposes that before he joined the league there was a question—some ideological gap that needed filling. He raised his own questions, which had perhaps never been raised in the league, and in watching we all found that The Answer was in the question.

“Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution—or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.”

It’s not to say that shooting is of a higher virtue than passing, or that a 2 guard is on a higher plane than a point.

Iverson is one of only a handful of players that are positionless; we assign them positions because that’s what we do in basketball, but in these case they don’t proscribe their style of play and only poorly describe it. We call LeBron James a small forward because he’s 6’8″ though he’s got the girth to play the 4, shoots like a 2 and passes like a point. We likewise have assigned Iverson the designation of a shooting guard—primarily because he’s short and because every square peg must fit in one of these five round holes.

Iverson isn’t a shooting guard, though. He’s a creator.

John Stockton is widely recognized as one of the finest point guards to ever play the position known for setting up others. In his 1998 season with the Finals-bound Jazz he averaged 8.5 assists per game, having perfected the pick and roll with Karl Malone. Contrast that with Iverson, perhaps the most “selfish” player to ever play the game, and his 2004-05 scoring title campaign. He averaged 30.7 points per game, and still averaged a personal high water mark 7.9 assists—only a half assist off the great Stockton.

Magic Johnson was the best point guard of all time because he was also an all-time great creator. He averaged 11 assists a game throughout his career, but also almost 20 points (Stockton: 13).

At his peak, Iverson produced creative performances that ranks with those of Michael Jordan and even Oscar Robertson, the godfather of all creators.

“In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. An architect needs clients, but he does not subordinate his work to their wishes. They need him, but they do not order a house just to give him a commission. Men exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange. If they do not desire it, they are not forced to deal with each other. They seek further. This is the only possible form of relationship between equals. Anything else is a relation of slave to master, or victim to executioner.”

AI said in 2007 how long he wanted to play in the NBA: “Until I can’t be Allen Iverson on the court, until I can’t dominate. When you look at the scouting report and my name is not the first name, you have to stop; then it’s time to go. I don’t want to be an old guy sitting on the bench for a championship team. I’m not coming off nobody’s bench.”

He made his bed, and now popular media refuses to let him lie in it. He stands alone against the whole world in his insistence to only play for a team as a starter, when to do anything else would be to go back on his word. In a world and a time where celebrity is allowed to lie, steal, and manipulate the public, Iverson is taking flak for doing what he’s publicly planned to do for years.

Allen Iverson can not, and should not, come off the bench.

Iverson knows, as well, what most of us are loathe to acknowledge—that the game of an off-the-bench Iverson isn’t the same as that of the starter Iverson, just in a smaller quantity. Off the bench, he’s a washed-up under-sized shooting guard. As a starter he’s still old and short, but he is true to himself. And to his game.

Eventually Howard Roark dynamites a series of buildings that would be some of his finest work, after they aren’t built to his exacting specifications.

“I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. To my country, I wish to give the ten years which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken its place.” [speech by Howard Roark, from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead]

There’s still time for a team to sign Iverson. Maybe the Memphis Grizzlies, maybe the Miami Heat, maybe the New York Knicks, maybe the Charlotte Bobcats, maybe Olympiakos. But he owes it to himself, and to us as fans, to do it as a starter.

As someone who’s won an MVP, been in the NBA Finals, and won four scoring titles, perhaps his biggest accomplishment will be to stick by his principles and walk away from the game while he is still Allen Iverson.