Basketball – No longer wanted by any NBA team, Allen Iverson, now 35 years old, will instead play in Turkey. The 2001 Most Valuable Player signed with the Turkish club Besiktas. Last year, he averaged close to 13.9 points per game with the Philadelphia 76ers. He briefly joined the Memphis Grizzlies last year before rejoining his old team. In 2001, his 76ers lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals.
Iverson’s agents called dozens of teams but all opted for younger guards on their roster in a league now filled with new names and young players. Allen Iverson also wanted to be a starter, and did not want to accept a reserve role.
“There are a lot of things that I’m not proud of,” Iverson said in a statement to the press. In 1996, he was taken No. 1 overall in the NBA draft.
“I came into this league 21 years old, never having nothing in my whole life and then given everything in the world. I met a lot of people that were bad people that I had around me. I met a lot of people that were good people. I had to at a young age distinguish who were good and who were bad. And I made a lot of mistakes along the way thinking I knew things that I didn’t know. A lot of times I was a fish out of water, I thought I was in the biggest ocean in the world. I made mistakes, so me not being on an NBA roster, and me being bad-mouthed throughout the league, a lot of things I have to own up to. A lot of those things were true. I made a lot of mistakes. And obviously it cost me.”
Iverson signed a two-year, $4 million deal. He has made more than $150 million in his career.
via Allen Iverson will play in Turkey – National International Sports | Examiner.com.
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