Last month, Ice Cube announced a truly amazing idea: a 3-on-3 basketball league for retired NBA players. The rapper-actor had a plan (the league would be held during the summer and would travel from city to city), a name (it would be called BIG3) and a commissioner (former NBA guard Roger Mason). All he needed was a full roster of players.
Well, according to Adrian Wojnarowksi of The Vertical, Ice Cube has gotten a commitment from the one former NBAer whose style and persona seem best designed for a three-on-three summer league: Allen Iverson.
Per Woj, The Answer, who last played in the NBA in 2010, will serve as player-coach in BIG3, which will launch this summer. Other players committed to his league include Chauncey Billups, Kenyon Martin, Rashard Lewis, Jermaine O’Neal, Stephen Jackson and Jason Williams, so there will be a lot of talent on the floor… along with some gray hair.
Besides the awesomeness of getting to see Allen Iverson play basketball again, especially in a loosely structured, space-filled format, let’s talk about Coach Allen Iverson.
Iverson was notoriously difficult to coach during his career, with the “We’re talking about practice” press conference the most memorable example of his hard-headedness. Two years ago, he joked that he could never become a coach “Because we would never practice.”
It’s not clear whether practice is part of the schedule for BIG3, but here we are, with AI calling the shots.
How will playing time on Iverson’s team be determined? Well, considering the player-coach once literally refused to come off the bench, we imagine he’ll be starting.