He is so money.
As fate would have it, the very year he left, 1996, Allen Iverson arrived in town, the tough kid with the difficult past, the do-rag, the body branded like a battlefield, the supersize pants slouching southward.
It took him a while. It took us a while longer. We were slow to accept him, as Philadelphians are wont to be.
Now we love him. Crazy love. It sluices down Broad Street and out to the neighborhoods, through county after county, even to places that usually care more about the links than layups.
For Allen is Philadelphia.
He's battered, bruised and (temporarily) broken, yet keeps fighting.
He's scrappy, baggy, misunderstood, underestimated, underappreciated.
Like Philadelphia.
He's fierce, combative, wicked fast.
Except for the fast part.
Allen is our new love object. And we know he feels it too. Kobe can stay put. It was never an ideal match to begin with.
Like the city, Allen is hard to market. He doesn't go down smooth. (With two years, Georgetown's Jesuits could only do so much.) He looks raw, poses rough, and scares the gross receipts out of Madison Avenue and the cowardly lions of the NBA, who pine for nothing more original than Michael: Part II.
He takes more shots than anyone ought to. He falls repeatedly. He swallows his own blood. Like a hockey player. He's impervious to pain. He never does anything easy. Like Tina Turner. He's pure grit and determination. Like Philadelphia.
He's all about Philadelphia. You could plop him down in North Philly. South Philly, too. He's beyond race. He's the 25-year-old street kid who owns Broad Street, Market Street, Montgomery Avenue, the Black Horse Pike.
