Allen Iverson
“ If anybody tell you that I missed practice, if a coach say I
missed practice and y'all here it, then that's that. I mean, I might
have missed one practice this year but if somebody says he
doesn't come to practice, it can be one practice out of all the
practices this year, that's enough. I told Coach Brown that you
don't have to give the people of Philadelphia a reason to think
about trading me or anything like that. If you trade somebody,
you trade them to make the team better...simple as that. I'm cool
with that. I'm all about that. The people in Philadelphia deserve to
have a winner. It's simple as that. It goes further than that ... If I
can't practice, I can't practice, man if I'm hurt, I'm hurt. It is as
simple as that. It ain't about that. It's not about that at all. But it's
easier to talk about it. It's easier to sum it up when you're just
talking about practice. We're sitting here, and I'm supposed to be
the franchise player, and we're in here talking about practice. I
mean listen, we're talking about practice. Not a game, not a game,
not a game, we're talking about practice. Not a game, not the
game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it's
my last, not the game, we're talking about practice man. I mean,
how silly is that? We're talking about practice. I know that I'm
supposed to be there, I know I'm supposed to lead by example. I
know that. And I'm not shoving that aside, you know, like it don't
mean anything. I know it's important. I do. I honestly do, but we're
talking about practice, man. What are we talking about? Practice?
We're talking about practice man.... We're talking about practice.
We're talking about practice. We ain't talking about the game.
We're talking about practice, man. When you come to the arena,
and you see me play, you see me play don't you? You see me
give everything I've got, right? but we're talking about practice
right now. We're talking about pra- ... Man, look, I hear you, it's
funny to me too, I mean, it's strange to me too but we're talking
about practice man. We're not even talking about the game, the
actual game, when it matters. We're talking about practice....
How the hell can I make my teammates better by practice?”
— Allen Iverson at a press conference on May 8, 2002