Iverson doesn't know the fans - not in the truest sense - any more than they know him. Yet watching him sit down in front of the 76ers logo was like watching your ex (the one you never fully got over) come back into your life. Maybe your heart skipped a little, and you got choked up. That's the way it went for Iverson. He tried to keep his emotions from pouring forth, and he did a pretty good job of it - for the first three or four minutes.
"I have fans all over the world," he said. "I appreciate my fans in Denver, my fans in Memphis, my fans in Detroit. But the relationship I have with these fans is like no other, I think, in sports. I have a love for them, and they love me. It's evident."
That did it. That's when he broke down, and the tears flowed freely. Sixers president and general manager Ed Stefanski was seated to his left and tried to cover for him, asking the assembly to move on to the next question. The team's media relations director slipped Iverson some tissues as subtly as he could, but there was nowhere for Iverson to regroup and gather himself. He just sat there and sobbed for a moment.
That's the good part about coming home, the thing that seemed to hit Iverson the hardest: You can be yourself around the people you love. You don't have to hide.
"All I could think about was the people who made me who I am. These people in Philadelphia made me a household name," Iverson said. "I just grew a relationship with the fans here like no other player and fan base, I think."
From ESPN.com to your friendly Philadelphia newspapers, there has been no shortage of breathless prose dissecting this move and what it all means. A lot of the analysis has focused on his potential impact on the team, his legacy, and whether signing him signals an act of desperation by Stefanski and the organization. Those concerns are not without merit, but they are premature.
