Allen Iverson is a Hall of Fame NBA player known for being an 11-time all-star, being in the NBA Hall of Fame, his legendary seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers and stepping over Tyron Lue and the epic crossover he hit over Michael Jordan his rookie season.
However, he is also known for changing the culture of basketball players in the NBA.
During the 90’s there were a bunch of unwritten rules in the league on and off the court, one of these being that NBA players are supposed to present themselves in a professional manner, which included wearing suits, slacks and dress shoes to every single game. But Iverson thought that these rules would prevent him from being himself, as he told the New York Post. “Back then, I was 21 years old I was kind of dressing like the guys from my neighborhood that I grew up with, so it was natural to me,” said Iverson.
He often would come into the court wearing baggy sweatpants, large chains, his hair in cornrows and a durag. Iverson said he was doing it his way but the league fought with him regardless.
Then-NBA commissioner David Stern did not think that players were looking like the affluent professionals that they were, and after the Malice at the Palace incident, an event where NBA players got into a brawl and attacked fans in November 2004 the commissioner had enough of players ruining the league’s image.
In October 2005 Stern instituted a dress code forcing players to wear business casual attire and would fine players who did not. This code caused a lot of backlash as many sports figures believed it targeted black males and hip-hop culture as a whole. Other players such as Paul Pierce and Stephen Jackson said that players’ clothing is not associated with their character and relating a hip-hop style of fashion to crime or a bad image is racist.
Iverson felt that this dress code made him betray who he was as a person, he wanted to express himself and show his genuineness to fans. He wasn’t just expressing himself off the court, he was also doing it on the court with the items that he wore during games.
Iverson changed on-court fashion by wearing compression sleeves and headbands While thats common for players today, Iverson was creating trends with these things in the 90’s and early 2000’s.
One last thing that made Iverson such an icon is being the first 2k video game cover athlete and holding it for 5 years in a row. Being on the cover of a game that millions of people play around the world asserts you into an extremely high-level pop culture icon. Adding this to his on and off-court style easily makes him the biggest cultural icon in all of basketball history.
