Shaquille O'Neal and Allen Iverson headlined the 10-man class that was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016.
Only one of those guys arrived to their Hall of Fame Presser on time, according to reports. Any guesses who was late to their own Hall of Fame press conference?
It could only be AI, the king of memorable press conferences himself. The guy whose most memorable press conference has been turned into a remixed song with over 5 million views and that was one point -- and I say this unabashedly -- on my iPod playlist.
One guy who wouldn't have been all too surprised that Iverson showed up late for an important event? Former 76er Raja Bell, who shared a story on The Ryen Russillo Podcast about Iverson's lack of punctuality for a rather important occasion: a team flight to Toronto for a playoff game against the Raptors.
This is one of my favorite stories... so we're sitting on there, it's like the usual suspects. You know, Aaron McKie and Eric Snow, Rodney Buford, Jumaine Jones... Dikembe (Mutombo). And Allen's not there. It's (been) 20 minutes and Larry Brown's like, 'we're leaving.'
So he goes back to the back of the plane. So now it's 40 minutes, Larry Brown comes back up and says, 'Has anybody talked to Allen.' ... 'Nope, we can't get him.' ... 'We're leaving.' So he goes and he sits back down in the back.
It's like an hour now, he comes back, 'Has anybody talked to Allen?' So we've left three times but we ain't budged. Finally, Allen comes onto the plane, up to the front, sits down and Larry comes bopping up and kind of follows him. And he's like standing over him and A.I. looks up and he's like, what do you want man. Larry mumbles something, and Allen said, 'What do you want me to do, you want me to apologize? You want me to get down and do some push-ups?' And he drops down in the middle of the aisle and starts rapping out push-ups.
From that point, Bell says that Brown looked down at Iverson, gave a what-am-I-supposed-to-do type of look, and retreated to the back of the plane.
I've had a fairly different experience with this in my days of traveling with a basketball team, albeit in a much different capacity. I've been on the team bus for my college, Franklin & Marshall, ready to head off to a game against, say, Johns Hopkins. 10 minutes after departure time and you're not there? Good luck getting to Maryland.
The stakes are a just a *tad* different, though. And Brown's decision to wait for Iverson probably paid off, considering Iverson averaged 33.7 points per game against the Raptors in the 2001 playoffs. The series went to seven games, one of which was a Sixers' victory on the road, so Brown's patience -- or necessity Iverson to be out on the floor -- was probably an important factor.
LISTEN NOW on the RADIO.COM App
Follow RADIO.COM Sports
Twitter | Facebook I Instagram