Remembering the '96-'97 Sixers: Our Last Season With the No. 1 Overall Pick

"With the first pick in the 1996 NBA draft, the Philadelphia 76ers select... Allen Iverson, from Georgetown University."

Tonight, the greatest Philadelphia 76er of the 21st century will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, the culmination of a 14-year NBA journey that kicked off with David Stern announcing Allen Iverson's selection as the Sixers' No. 1 overall pick on June 26, 1996. A month and change from now, the Sixers will begin what many hope will be a new chapter in franchise history, as they welcome a new class of blue-chip rookies to their roster — headlined, of course, by LSU forward Ben Simmons, the first No. 1 overall pick made by Philly since Iverson — and try to officially move into the "building" stage of the rebuilding process.

In 1996-'97, the Sixers also hoped to be moving onwards and upwards. Coming off an 18-64 season that was the team's worst since their historical 9-73 effort 23 years earlier, the Sixers had a new stadium (the CoreStates Center, replacing the Spectrum after 30 years), a new coach (former Philadelphia foe Johnny Davis), and a new franchise player to add to a young core of Jerry Stackhouse and Derrick Coleman. The front office filled around them with veterans, and it seemed like the Sixers might be able to make an early leap forward. 

Of course, it didn't turn out that way — the Ballers struggled through serious growing pains in A.I.'s first season, and though their rookie was spectacular as expected, he wasn't without his  controversies. By season's end, it was clear that even if Iverson was the Answer for the Sixers, further major changes were going to have to be made around him for the superstar to truly provide the team resolution. 

So before Allen Iverson's enshrinement tonight, and before we start dreaming too big about what a new franchise player can do to catapult the modern-day Sixers into immediate respectability, let's flash back 20 years to the '96-'97 season — as we did a couple years ago with '95-'96 — and recall some of the year's most memorable moments and takeaways. It was a season of false starts and disappointing finishes, but one laced with the excitement of much greater things to come, and one that would eventually lead to (almost) everything Sixers fans had been dreaming of. 

(As always, asides in itals come courtesy of legendary Philly sports historian Dave "Where Is Ben Rivera" Reuter.) 

Two Steps Backward, One Step Forward. By '96-'97, the Sixers hadn't sniffed the playoffs in half a decade, and had finished with a worse record every year since. The trade of superstar forward Charles Barkley in the '92 off-season failed to restock the cupboard, and subsequent high draft picks like Shawn Bradley (#2, 1993) and Sharone Wright (#6, 1994) had not panned out as hoped. A revolving door of coaches had led to the naming of John Lucas as both coach and general manager in '94, a decision that would soon prove disastrous. The Sixers were stuck building around non-stars like Dana Barros and Clarence Weatherspoon, waiting to finally hit paydirt in the draft, and crossing their fingers about landing a game-changer in trade or free agency. 

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The 1995-'96 season offered hope in the form of UNC swingman Jerry Stackhouse, taken by Philly with the third overall pick in the '95 draft. Stack was promised as the 76ers' new franchise player, and he showed early flashes of delivering on that potential, scoring 27 in his professional debut, a season-opening home victory. But the rookie was inconsistent, and the cast around him — a motley crew of busting prospects and wayward vets whose careers Lucas was sure he could rehabilitate — offered little help. The aimless Sixers cycled through a perpetually rotating roster of 24 overall players, and the season was quickly lost, with Lucas fired from all positions shortly after the team wrapped their 18-64 campaign.

Redemption, however, would come that May in Secaucus, when fist-pumping team president Pat Croce was informed that the Sixers had landed the No. 1 overall pick in the stacked 1996 draft. The Sixers needed everything, but they really needed a point guard and a center, so Croce's decision came down to UMass big man Marcus Camby, Georgia Tech point guard Stephon Marbury, or Georgetown combo guard Allen Iverson. Camby wasn't viewed as a true center, and Iverson's warrior mentality stunned Croce in workouts, so when the moment came for David Stern to open the evening's first envelope, it was A.I. who was called as the Sixers' top pick. (The 1996 draft, of course, has come to be an all-timer, with three future Hall-of-Famers not even strongly considered by Philly — Ray Allen, Steve Nash, and Kobe Bryant — also taken in the first round.) 

"I hope I'm the missing piece. I think I'm capable of making a lot of things happen," Iverson offered on draft night. "It's the start of a new era.'' Even back then, there were doubts about whether or not Iverson could be a pure point guard, but his backcourt mate Jerry Stackhouse didn't seem overly worried about their fit together. "My role is to score, his role is playmaker, and that entails scoring," proclaimed Stack in a Daily News article entitled "Stackhouse and Iverson Will Be Fast Freinds." "There will be plenty of opportunities for everybody.''

WIBR: What's strange is that I only remember the #1 pick being a two-horse race between Iverson and Stephon Marbury. Did the Sixers ever really consider the eventual #2 pick, Marcus Camby? My internet research proved futile, but I did find this little gem. From a 1996 NBA Mock Draft for SI (emphasis mine):

2. Raptors: Marcus Camby, F, Massachusetts. Toronto boss Isiah Thomas has high hopes for a Camby-Sharone Wright front line. Some observers expect a curve ball here, but, says Thomas, "I'm telling you: I'm taking Camby."

High Hopes for a Camby/Sharone Wright front line? Is that what Harry Kalas had in mind when he sang about that little old ant moving that little rubber tree plant? Iverson was always the pick here. 

"He's the perfect complement to @JerryStackhouse. What could go wrong?" - Tweets from 1996

Hey Hey Johnny. Two weeks before the draft, the 76ers selected the man who would lead what the PR team would eventually dub the Sixers "Revolution." Johnny Davis, a top assistant for the Portland Trail Blazers, was already familiar to longtime 76ers fans for what he had done with the Blazers two decades earlier, helping Portland defeat the Dr. J-led Sixers in the '77 NBA finals as a rookie point guard. “Years ago, I was instrumental in taking [a championship] away," he said at his introductory press conference. "I now want to be instrumental in bringing one back.” Unlike the fiery Lucas, Davis was known as a "player's coach," even-tempered and restrained in public. ("Johnny Davis . . . isn't loud, but he gets his point across," Iverson explained of his coach-to-be on draft night.) 

Davis knew of the challenge ahead, but claimed to look forward to the opportunity: "We are rebuilding into something solid and consistent. We are just starting this project. Some patience, both from the ownership and the fans, must be exercised.'' However, even with Davis leaving GM responsibilities to the promoted-from-within Brad Greenberg, rival execs warned that such patience would be minimal for the Sixers' fifth coach in six seasons. "The guys they've got there now can make all the right moves to get the players in place, to start the team back up, and if they don't win quickly enough, that may be their one legacy," portended one such exec to the Inquirer. "`Patience will run out, particularly if this team doesn't perform well." 

WIBR: I would say that Johnny Davis was the worst Sixers coach in recent memory, but the Eddie Jordan Era keeps tugging on my pant leg. I was only twelve in 1996, so admittedly, my knowledge of coaches didn't extend much further than Doug Moe's three-guard offense, but where did Johnny Davis come from?

I know he literally came from Portland, but, like, was he on anyone else's radar? I feel like the Davis hire just generated a collective, "Who?" from the city. Just like every other coaching search that has taken place in Philadelphia the past twenty years, I wanted the Sixers to bring in John Gruden,

"Gruden understands the city," I told my 6th grade teacher, before calling into WIP from the school office. 

A Historic Free Agency Period (For Everyone Else). The 1996 NBA off-season was a bonanza to make recent summers look like a couple kids swapping Upper Deck cards by comparison. Shaquille O'Neal, Dikembe Mutombo, Allan Houston, and Alonzo Mourning all moved teams in free agency, Michael Jordan, Tim Hardaway, Reggie Miller, Juwan Howard, Gary Payton, Hakeem Olajuwon, Dennis Rodman, Horace Grant, and John Stockton all re-signed with their old teams, and Anthony Mason, Larry Johnson, Vlade Divac, Rasheed Wallace, Mark Jackson, and Charles Barkley were all traded, among various other mini-swaps and coach dealings. A 2014 article for Yahoo! Sports about the '96 offseason called it "the wackiest one [in NBA history] by miles." 

From all that chaos and all those big-name players, the Sixers ended up with Don MacLean, Lucious Harris, and Michael Cage. OK, so the Sixers were probably never going to end up with MJ or Hakeem or any other future Hall-of-Famers — even though John Lucas talked clearing cap space during the '95-'96 season as if that was an actual possibility. Still, for a team looking to make a splash and put their fallow days in the rearview, it had to have been a little dispiriting for their ultimate haul to be a backup forward two years removed from a Most Improved Player award that he should've had to give back, a bench shooter from the then-deplorable Mavericks, and a 34-year-old center who averaged 7 points per 36 minutes. 

Still, the three signings helped flesh out the roster, even as they tapped out the Sixers' available cap space. "There is no cavalry coming over the hill," offered a pragmatic Cage upon signing. "The cavalry is right here. We can't be looking for something that isn't coming.''

WIBR: The '96-'97 Sixers outfit was such an odd array of talent. None of the pieces, sans Iverson, seemed to fit. It was like getting out a chessboard, and, instead of using pawns, rooks, and knights, you plop down three Pogs, a Tic-Tac, and a Casey Jones action figure.

The original Iron Man, Clarence Weatherspoon, started all 82 games with the Sixers, and if you're expecting me to badmouth 'Spoon, well, you clicked on the wrong article. And, let me emphasize this: If you do badmouth 'Spoon in either the comments section, or on social media, I will find you, and I will reach through your screen like the girl from The Ring and wrangle your neck. I will then take your lifeless body, post you up on the low block, pump-fake three times, and draw the foul. 

But outside of 'Spoon, Iverson, and Stackhouse? It was a roster only a mother could love.

The five spot was a watered-down cocktail of Scott Williams and the "Juice Man," Michael Cage. Williams was in year three of a 27-year deal he signed with the Sixers, which he'd earned on the back of watching the greatest basketball player of all time from the friendly confines of the Chicago Bulls bench. 

The First Night. The CoreStates Center opened to a crowd of 20,444 on November 1, 1996, there to watch the new-look Sixers host Ray Allen and the Milwaukee Bucks. The Sixers trailed early as Iverson got off to a rocky start, but the team and their star rookie took off in the third quarter, with a number of exciting full-court plays that brought Marc Zumoff (in his third season of play-by-play announcing) to near-blackout levels of ecstasy. One highlight, an alley-oop hookup between Iverson and new bud Jerry Stackhouse, seemed to bode particularly well for the Sixers' future. 

The Sixers lost the game, unfortunately, with all five Bucks starters (including former Sixer Andrew Lang and future Sixer Glenn Robinson) scoring in double figures, and the Sixers making some dumb mistakes down the stretch, including a late-game technical on Iverson. But A.I. scored 30 on 12-19 shooting in his NBA debut, to go with six assists, including a gorgeous bounce-pass on the move to Derrick Coleman (who also posted a 25-13-7 line), and NBA excitement seemed to have returned to the City of Brotherly Love. "I'm disappointed with the loss, but I'm not discouraged," said Coach Davis after the game. "We didn't win, but for a start, it's not bad.''

Wins! The Sixers would drop their first three games of the season, before picking up their first W of the Iverson era against the Celtics — the one Atlantic Division team predicted by Sports Illustrated to be worse than Philly in '96-'97. A home victory against the Barkley-less Suns followed, and Philly's mini-win streak was capped by an impressive road defeat of the title-contending Knicks. Iverson topped 30 in two of the three games, Stack scored 36 in the other one, and suddenly the Sixers were the NBA's Greatest Show on Hardwood. "It's a show, and Allen Iverson is pure entertainment," declared Phil Jasner

It was good timing for Iverson and Philly, too, as the rookie had started to draw national attention for less desirable reasons: his shorts being ruled too long, his friends being seen as unsavory, even the legality of his trademark crossover dribble being questioned. The NBA, stunned by the rookie's signature move, had begun to analyze it on a frame-by-frame basis, concluding it a traveling violation — two of which the Answer was called for in the Phoenix win. "`Allen can't take anything personally,'' offered Stackhouse. "He's so good, they've got to try to do something to stifle him." A.I.'s response was simple: "It's just something to stop my progress. It won't."

"Derrick Coleman Is Back. Sort Of." So proclaimed a December 11 Daily News article about the Sixers' once-prized big man. Coleman had lost a good deal of his luster since coming over from New Jersey in a mid-season trade for disappointing giant Shawn Bradley the previous year, with injuries and poor conditioning holding him to just 11 games of subpar production. But an off-season of rehab and training (which left him in "relatively fit" condition) had the Sixers and Coleman hopeful that the forward's next full season would be a more representative one. "I don't think Philadelphia has really seen what I can do," Coleman suggested pre-season. 

By December, it appeared that Coleman was mostly right. He hadn't quite regained the 20-10 form he flashed as an All-Star in New Jersey, but through his first 20 games, he averaged a very respectable 18-9-4 on 45% shooting, though with nearly four turnovers a game. Despite not yet playing at 100%, he had shown enough to excite teammates about his potential. "He's still not in the shape he knows can carry us some nights," offered Stackhouse. "But he's better than any big man I've ever played with." 

And There it Goes. A 7-8 opening to the season, including two wins over the Knicks and another over the similarly dominant Miami Heat, was enough to hold optimism that the new-look Sixers could be competitive throughout Johnny Davis' first year at the helm. But after an 0-3 trip to Texas, in which the Sixers fell short against undermanned Spurs and Mavs teams, the bottom fell out, and starting with that early-December Alamo run, the team would lose a staggering 23 of their next 24 games. (The lone win came in a 31-point blowout in Denver, with Iverson scoring 31 in 31 minutes.) The young Sixers started developing a tendency to get down big early, launch a late-game comeback, and ultimately fall short. "The 76ers are collecting ugly games the way a dead cow collects flies," proclaimed one Inquirer lede towards the streak's peak. 

Memorable moments were still collected amidst the losing. Allen Iverson experienced a sort of symbolic passing-of-the-torch from one NBA generation's most controversial player to the next's when he got into a spat with Bulls forward Dennis Rodman in a December game against Chicago. Rodman and teammate Scottie Pippen had done some chirping with Iverson during a November game, reportedly leading to A.I. cursing out Michael Jordan, which he'd later furiously deny doing. It culminated in the Bulls further trying to bait Iverson and get in his head during that December meeting, an operation led, of course, by Rodman. The quotes from the ensuing Chicago Tribune recap demand to be printed in full: 

He was baited by Harper, by Randy Brown, and especially by Rodman, who after getting fouled by Iverson patted him on the butt. "Don't touch my butt," Iverson snapped as he ran up the court, and Rodman--with a smile--nodded his assent. But as he passed Iverson on his own way up the court, he patted him there again.

Two points. That is all Iverson would score in the last 16 minutes 26 seconds of this game. Five turnovers. That is how many he would make in the fourth quarter, and now the Bulls bench was in on baiting him as well.

Iverson would eventually body up Rodman after getting pushed by the mercurial forward on a rebound, necessitating the referees to separate the two. "I just wanted him to come in the lane so I could hit him," Rodman said post-game. "You've got to respect the game and respect the players you're playing against, and he doesn't respect people. He thinks he's God. He thinks he's G-O-D, God. He thinks the court is his street, his playground, and he can do anything he wants and say anything he wants." (Iverson later got his revenge against the Bulls, though Chicago would sweep the season series, 4-0.) 

Meanwhile, Derrick Coleman would have one of the best games of his career in a 36-16-6-5 performance against the Kings in Sacramento, which the Sixers of course still lost — 107-106, on a last-second shot by Kings star Mitch Richmond. "Derrick's playing at an All-Star level. I don't see a better power forward out there," Coach Davis said of Coleman, whose performance marked his third straight game of over 20 points and ten rebounds. "We can't catch a break," bemoaned DC.

This Jerry Stackhouse play, from a January loss to Golden State, demonstrates the Sixers' essential inability to hold on to games in early '97: 

Commercial Break. Though Stackhouse got off to an underwhelming sophomore campaign alongside his new backcourt partner — through the end of '96, he was averaging 19 a game, but only shooting 38%, and posting more turnovers than assists — he was still star enough to get his own Fila commercial, debuted during Super Bowl XXXI. The clip features Stack taking an elevator to the top of a construction site, and dribbling around the incomplete floor frame while incredulous onlookers gasp underneath. He then dunks the ball — why would the site have a basketball hoop? — and parachutes off the edifice, as the phrase "CHANGE THE GAME" appears on screen. The ad could not be more 1997 if it featured cameos from OMC and Dolly the Sheep. 

Iverson's First MVP. The Sixers' second straight losing streak of 12-plus games finally came to an end in late January with a 127-125 overtime win against the Celtics in Boston. Stackhouse had 38 and Iverson 26, but the game's unlikely hero was fill-in point guard Rex Walters, who nearly put up a triple-double, ending with 27 points, 11 assists, and nine rebounds. "I've got to get out there and get touches,'' suggested a feeling-himself Walters after the game. "They've got to have faith in me. I've been successful at every level." (It would be the last 20-point performance of Walters' career.) Following the Celtics win, the Sixers would take three of their next six games, and though Davis' crew had hardly solved their losing ways, their streaks would be kept to single-digit L's from then on. 

But the most encouraging win of early '97 for the Sixers may have come at the 1997 Rookie Challenge game at All-Star Weekend. Iverson, somewhat slighted to not be playing on Sunday, put on a show in the game's first half, ringing up eight assists on a dazzling array of alley-oops, no-looks, and full-court bounce-passes. A.I.'s East squad won 96-91, and the Answer's 19 points, nine dimes, and three blocks led to him being named the game's MVP. 

Again, Iverson's moment of triumph came at a time when the player was coming under public fire — for not respecting his NBA elders, for hanging out with what was increasingly being termed a "posse," for admitting that he owned a handgun. ("He has a permit for it. What can I say to him? I own a gun, too.'' offered an always-supportive Croce.) Former Sixers great Charles Barkley even took the opportunity of All-Star Weekend to air his grievances with and about Iverson, saying the rookie "should take the criticism" from NBA vets, and that "It's all right to be an individual... but there's no reason for a team that talented to lose 23 of 24. It's a learning process.''

Iverson himself even addressed the ongoing drama upon accepting his MVP trophy. "I wasn't expecting anything like this,'' he explained. "But I'm not hoping that now everybody will be on my side because of this award. It's not going to be that way, no matter how well I play.''

The Fans Respond. Though they were done with the endless losing streaks, the bad vibes lingered around the 76ers through February, culminating in an ill-advised meeting held by Pat Croce and Brad Greenberg with 210 Sixers season ticket holders. Coming off a five-game losing streak with the team's record sitting at 12-39, the fans were livid about the team's on-court product, and the men responsible for putting it out there. "You've got to clean house because you've got a dirty, stinking, messy house," the Inquirer quotedone fan as demanding. "This team is so bad I couldn't even get a friend to come with me to this.''

The greatest sources of fan ire appeared to be the lack of deals made by Greenberg at the trade deadline, and the play of overweight power forward Derrick Coleman, whose continually poor conditioning was singled out as representative of the entire team's lack of effort. "I cannot understand how you can have a player hurt his finger and then come back overweight,'' one fan said of DC. "As far as I know, you can run with a hurt finger. It's disturbing to see a player waddling up and down the court." While Croce defended Iverson and Stackhouse to the fans, he had nothing to say to Coleman criticism. ("He shouldn't [be overweight]," Croce said of Coleman. "You're talking to a conditioning coach. He shouldn't be.'') 

The biggest takeaway from the evening might have been the silence from both Croce and Greenberg in response to complaints about the coaching of Johnny Davis. Though both President and GM would eventually voice their support for Davis after the fact, their in-the-moment reticence became a story in itself. "I don't have time to wallow or engage in self-pity," said Davis about the whole mess. "I'm too busy for that."

For the (Future) Birds. Allen Iverson wasn't the only draft selection of the Philadelphia 76ers on that June night in 1996. The Sixers also selected a trio of second-rounders — Washington State forward Mark Hendrickson (#31),  Oklahoma guard Ryan Minor (#32), and Michigan State forward Jamie Feick (#48). If those names don't sound familiar to you as a Sixers fan, that's because they only played a combined one half-season for the Ballers, with Hendrickson playing 301 minutes for us in '96-'97. At least 300 of those minutes were eminently forgettable, but he did spend one of 'em getting dunked on by Michael Jordan in an April game, the hilarious image of which would go on to be something of a cult classic. 
 

However, if those names do sound familiar to you as a baseball fan, that's because both went on to have greater — relatively speaking, natch — success in the MLB. Minor earned himself permanent trivia infamy for being the guy who replaced Cal Ripken, Jr. at third base for the Orioles, when Ripken optionally sat out his final 1998 home game to bring his consecutive-games streak to an end at 2,632. Hendrickson would also go on to play pro baseball, going a combined 58-74 over ten seasons as a pitcher for the Blue Jays, Rays, Dodgers, Marlins, and also the Orioles — though the Jordan pic would continue to haunt him. That was the mid-'90s Sixers for you: Wasting second-rounders on dudes who weren't even playing the right sport. 

WIBR: Imagine watching Mark Hendrickson getting dunked on by Michael Jordan. Then, the next day, you go back to your astronaut gig with NASA. You hop in a shuttle, check out the moon, the stars, Mars — if there's time — and come back to Earth ten years later. 

You take off your spacesuit, rush home, and put on the Phils because J.D. Durbin is taking the bump that night and you've heard good things about the Durbinator. And pitching for the Dodgers? Your dear friend, Mark Hendrickson, who you swore played for the Sixers ten years earlier. What's going through your mind? How do you reconcile that? Never mind that Hendrickson got tuned up for 7 ER and 11 hits in just 3 innings.

Hendrickson pitched in the majors for over ten years. And, prior to that, played in the NBA? Go screw, Tim Tebow. How is this not a 30 for 30? That's arguably the greatest athletic accomplishment of the last fifty years. It's like Jesse Orosco playing linebacker for the '72 Dolphins. 

Fast Friends, Faster Fighters. "Sixers 1-2 Punch Each Other" declared the Daily News headline. Before the 76ers' game against the Knicks on March 19, the Sixers' backcourt of the future got into a scrap at a shootaround. The details of the fight remain sketchy to this day — ""It looked like two old ladies swinging their pocketbooks at each other," the L.A. Times quoted one observer's analysis — but both players had shrugged it off by gametime. "Jerry and I will probably go out tonight," Iverson said of the post-tussle. "I would never let anything that happened on the basketball court carry over into my relationship with Jerry. I'm going to have to look at his face for a long, long time and he's going to have to look at my face for a long, long time."

The most memorable quote about the dust-up undoubtedly belonged to Stackhouse: ""It was a fight between one guy who didn't know how to fight and another guy who didn't want to fight." The Sixers lost to the Knicks by 11. 

The Crossover. The end of the '96-'97 season was mostly a period of mounting injuries and embarrassing losses for the 76ers. The Ballers suffered a particularly galling March loss to the Bullets, whose final minute included an inbounds pass to a head-turned Derrick Coleman, and a final six seconds where the Sixers failed to foul and stop the clock, inspiring a hearty round of boos from the CoreStates Center crowd. A loss to the Timberwolves a week later may have been even worse: Up 14 with six minutes to go, the Sixers couldn't manage a single further field goal, and again gave the game away on a faulty inbounds pass, this time with Coleman doing the dishing. "Sixers Give New Meaning To Awful," proclaimed the always-measured Daily News.

However, one true highlight remained for the season, and it's probably the moment most think back to when they remember Allen Iverson's rookie season.

You've seen the highlight dozens, if not hundreds of times already. Iverson isos with Michael Jordan at the top of the key. He fakes a crossover at MJ to see if he'll bite, and Jordan does. He pulls back on it, and then swoops a crossover for real, and leaves #23 at the opposite end of the free-throw line. He shoots, and buries the jumper, as the crowd goes wild and ESPN tabs the clip for heavy rotation. 

The moment has become one of the most iconic of the modern NBA; one generational superstar going at another and temporarily getting the best of him, signaling the cultural sea change around the corner. It encapsulated what so many fans would come to love about Iverson, if they didn't already: the swagger, the showmanship, the creativity, and the fearlessness. Today, it's eclipsed maybe only by him stepping over Tyronn Lue in Game 1 of the NBA finals as the most legendary moment of #3's career, and for true NBA fans, no matter who many times you've seen it — I still can't believe how close Jordan gets to blocking the damn thing — it still makes you squeal with glee. 

Iverson would score 37 on 15-23 shooting that night, a true star-making performance if the City of Brotherly Love ever hosted one. The Sixers lost by four, but the Answer had made his statement to the bullying Bulls, as well as to his own coach. "I hope this game brings my coach a little familiar, my teammates more familiar, with my game," Iverson said in the post-game. "In clutch time, when we need a basket, I'd like to be the first option." 

Incidentally, Sixers legend Andrew Toney was also in the CoreStates Center that night, the first Sixers home game the Boston Strangler had attended since leaving the team nearly a decade earlier. Asked about his attendance, Toney offered: "I came back to see two great players: Michael and Allen." 

WIBR: Cut the crap, Andrew. Just post the YouTube clip of The Crossover and hand me a tube sock. 

Was it good for you? I usually watch that clip with Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" playing softly in the background.

The Streak: Though his performance that night against the Bulls was the signature moment of Allen Iverson's freshman year in the NBA, his most impressive accomplishment would come a month later, with the season winding down. In the team's fourth and final game against the Chicago Bulls, Iverson exploded for a season-high 44 points, albeit in a blowout loss — the Bulls won by 26 and Jordan only played 30 minutes. But the tap had officially opened on Iverson's scoring, and from there, the buckets game pouring out. He put up 40 on the Hawks, then another 44 against the Bucks. Then in Cleveland, a staggering 50, breaking Wilt Chamberlain's rookie record for most consecutive games with 40+ points in the process.

The Inquirer recap of the game opened with this dialogue between Cavs coach Mike Fratello and lead guard Bobby Sura: 

Cleveland coach Mike Fratello was apoplectic. His guard, Bobby Sura, had fallen down again while trying to guard the Sixers' Allen Iverson. 

"Bobby, what are you doing?'" Fratello screamed as Iverson used his crossover dribble to fake Sura and then explode to the basket.

"What do you want me to do? He's going right by me,"' Sura screamed back. 

All is forgiven, Bobby. Saturday night there was no stopping Allen Iverson.

Finally, he scored an even 40 against the Bullets, capping his streak at five games. The last of Iverson's 40+ point games came with a bit of an asterisk though, as the final bucket of that night came on a last-minute three-pointer in garbage time that Washington didn't even try to contest — a charitable donation to #3's streak after the guard had missed three free throws in the final minute. This omove was taken as patronizing by some of the Sixers, who were already irritated by Iverson's stat-gunning in pursuit of Rookie of the Year resume-padding, and by the fact that the team had lost in all five games of A.I.'s streak. 

"I look at it as if they're making fun of us," Jerry Stackhouse opined after the game. "It was like, 'OK, we beat 'em, let 'em do what they want.' It was like it didn't even really matter to them." Stack went on to hint that if Iverson was going to continue to overwhelm the offense on these Sixers, he might not be sticking around for much longer. "I like to have my touches. If I'm open, I want the ball, too. I have another season to see if that's the case. I'll look at that, then evaluate.'' Even his later attempt to stay positive included an obvious Iverson subtweet: "Next year, it'll be a different situation; we won't be pushing for awards the way we are this year." 
 

Let the Hammer Fall. The Sixers' season ended on April 19, with a humiliating loss to the Hawks in Atlanta. Iverson scored 35, but the Hawks scored 136, on ridiculous 65% shooting, and the undermanned Sixers fell by 32. After the game, Stackhouse had some cutting words for those teammates he saw as failing to bunker down with him: "Some people on the team didn't have the will to compete with us... The guys with us right now are the guys who brought it all season. That's all I've got to say." Veteran center Michael Cage, who kept the NBA's second-longest consecutive-games streak alive with a full 82 played for the Sixers, concurred. "We suffered from the guys who didn't want to be here," said Cage. "Some of us ran for cover, some faced the fire."

Though Rex Walters, Don MacLean, and free agency disappointment Lucious Harris were among those missing from the Sixers' bench during their final game, the most likely target of Cage and Stackhouse's ire likely remained Derrick Coleman. DC's season ended on something of a statistical high note, the power forward posting double-doubles in 11 of his last 12 games, but coaches and teammates had grown frustrated with his sulking attitude. He skipped practices, sat out of timeouts, and pined for a trade as the deadline approached.  "Derrick hasn't practiced with the team since the all-star break," claimed one anonymous teammate in an Inquirer post-mortem on the Sixers season, which also posited that the team's coaching staff stopped believing they could win with Coleman, and advised that the rest of his then-exorbitant contract be bought out.

But before the Coleman situation would be addressed, Pat Croce wasted no time in cleaning out his front office. The day after Game 82, both Johnny Davis and Brad Greenberg were fired, just one year into their respective three-year deals. The relationship between Davis and Greenberg themselves may ultimately have been the undoing of both, as it was reported that Davis resented Greenberg's attachment to his own players and inactivity at the trade deadline, and Greenberg believed Davis needed to get more out of the players he had. "I don't agree with the decision, but it's Pat's decision to make,'" Davis said, responding to a further question about being given a fair shot with a simple "No comment." Greenberg, meanwhile, theorized that his lack of deadline dealing sealed his fate prematurely. "I was committed to building this roster with the big picture in mind," objected the proto-Hinkie. 

Amidst all the Sixers' behind-the-scenes bloodshed, there was one thing to feel positive about: Allen Iverson was named the 1996-'97 Rookie of the Year on May 1. Iverson had finished his rookie season averaging an impressive 23.5 PPG and 7.5 APG, leading all rookies in scoring, steals (over two a game), and, of course, turnovers (an absurd 4.4 per). The choice had its critics — then-Timberwolves coach Kevin McHale protested that the award should have gone to his point guard Stephon Marbury, whose per-game numbers were worse than Iverson's, but who helped bring Minnesota back to playoff contention: "It sends a bad message to these kids: 'Come in, jack it up, your team loses.'" (Unsurprisingly, Barkley was also among the haters, derisively dubbing A.I. "the playground Rookie of the Year.") 

For Iverson, who had taken to calling the ROY "my award" towards the end of the season, the selection was a no-brainer. "In my heart, I knew who the Rookie of the Year was," he asserted. 

A Change Is Gonna Come. The same day that Iverson received his Rookie of the Year award, rumors started swirling that the Sixers had agreed with the esteemed Larry Brown, who had just resigned from his position in Indiana, to be the 76ers' new head coach. Though Brown brought with him an infamous reputation as a wanderer — at 56 years old, he'd already had nine separate head-coaching gigs between the college and pro levels — he also brought a history of getting teams focused, disciplined, and Playing the Right Way. Brown sized up the Sixers' roster in his introductory presser. "We have two young guards who have unbelievable ability, but sometimes they're strangers," he observed, before turning attention to the team's enigmatic power forward. "Derrick Coleman is one of the five best talents in our league. My job is to get him to understand the responsibility he has."

Of course, with a little luck in the upcoming NBA lottery, Brown joked he could "be a great coach overnight." The 1997 draft had a handful of exciting players, but only one viewed as an absolute sure thing: Wake Forest big man Tim Duncan, who was the exact kind of professional, defense-minded, all-around frontcourt leader the Sixers deseprately needed. Unfortunately, the team was not to be blessed by the lottery gods a second time: The No. 1 pick went to the San Antonio Spurs, who'd finished with a 20-62 record in a lost year of star center David Robinson being sidelined by injury. The Sixers would have to make do with the second pick — which, considering the Sixers only had the league's fifth-worst record, was still a pretty good landing spot. 

Unfortunately, there was no clear choice for Philly at No. 2. Colorado point guard Chauncey Billups declined to give the Sixers a full workout, and overlapped with Iverson and Stackhouse in the backcourt. Utah forward Keith Van Horn held some appeal for his scoring versatility, but reportedly told Sixers brass he "didn't want to come here." The team declined to visit a workout from high school wing phenom Tracy McGrady after he canceled a scheduled interview and workout with them. 

Ultimately, the team selected Van Horn, but traded him on draft night to the New Jersey Nets, picking up the Nets' two first-round picks (Villanova forward Tim Thomas, #7, and Bradley shooting guard Anthony Parker, #21), as well as volume-scoring wing Jim Jackson and former UNC big man Eric Montross, in the process. (The eight-player deal also saw the Sixers give up Cage, MacLean, and Harris — essentially undoing the team's entire free-agency haul from the prior summer.) Further complicating matters was a deal the Sixers had arranged for the previous week, which sent Cage and longtime power forward Clarence Weatherspoon to the Celtics in exchange for Croatian big man Dino Radja. The swap had gotten voided after Radja failed his Sixers physical, and after a short-lived Celtics protest, the Sixers were free to include Cage in the Van Horn - Thomas deal. 

Why trade down? It was reported that Billups — who would, of course, survive a rocky first few years in the NBA to go on to a Hall-of-Fame-caliber career with the Pistons and Nuggets — was Brown's top choice. But the Sixers had a lot of work to do with their roster and cap sheet, and shedding the long-term salaries of MacLean and Harris while picking up a pair of rookies and veteran contributors was apparently too much for the Sixers' front office to turn down. "You don't get a lot of chances to pick that high, and I believe in taking the best player, but we had to address a lot of needs," Brown said after the deal was made official. "Between that and our salary-cap problems, we had to consider doing something else." (Van Horn would eventually play for the Sixers anyway, serving as Iverson's frontcourt sidekick for the '02-'03 season.) 

The next season would not mark a great leap forward for the Sixers, but they started to get respectable, cutting their points allowed per game from 106.7 all the way down to 95.7 in Brown's first year of leadership. The mid-season jettisoning of Jerry Stackhouse to Detroit for the defensive-minded duo of guard Aaron McKie and center Theo Ratliff played a huge part in helping Philly discover their ultimate team identity, and the Ballers finished with a 31-51 record, their best showing in six seasons. (Improbably, Derrick Coleman stuck around the whole year, though he only played in 59 games and shot a paltry 41% from the field, and was waived by the Sixers in the off-season.)  In the lockout-shortened '98-'99 season, the 76ers made the playoffs for the first time since '91 and Iverson won the scoring title, marking the franchise finally having turned the corner. 

Looking back on '96-'97 now, it would seem that the lesson is to not get too excited about the number of blue-chip prospects you have out on the court until you see how they, their coach, and the rest of their roster all mesh together. Jerry Stackhouse was certainly no slouch for his career — he'd go on to average nearly 30 a game for Detroit in '01, and serve as a key reserve on the '06 Mavericks team that made it to the finals — but he and Iverson never quite fit in the backcourt together, and together with Derrick Coleman, it was just too many hands needing the ball, and not enough attention remaining for the other end of the court. 

Hopefully Ben Simmons will find better chemistry with Joel Embiid, Dario Saric, and whatever other big-man prospects remain on our roster come opening night, but chances are it won't come easy, and some of our dudes will probably need to be moved for better-fitting pieces before the team can realize its full potential. That's the way it works in the NBA: You don't just add good players one at a time and get that much incrementally better each season. It's cooking, not math, and the blending of the ingredients is everything. 

But Allen Iverson, Larry Brown, and the Sixers eventually did mostly figure it out, and that's one of the main reasons why Iverson is headed to the Hall of Fame tonight. It took five years of building around him, and five years of teardowns, false start,s and abject misery leading up to his arrival, but it's hard to imagine that anyone involved with that 2001 Finals team would say that the process to get there wasn't worth it. All we can hope for is to one day be able to look back and say the same about our Hinkie-era rebuild — preferably from Simmons and/or Embiid's enshrinement in Springfield.

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