MISUNDERSTOOD

Beating a wrongful conviction and becoming a hardwood great.

Iverson isn’t the first athlete to complain that the public doesn’t get him, but few have stated their case so compellingly. This is a frank, powerful memoir of injustice, loss, and resilience. The sub-6-footer led the Philadelphia 76ers to the 2001 NBA Finals, showcasing highlight-reel skills and becoming the “smallest MVP in league history.” But first came tremendous adversity. As a teen in Virginia, he was convicted of felonies after a brawl and served several months in prison. An appeals court overturned his conviction, but paternalistic columnists and opposing teams’ fans—some of whom chanted “Jailbird!” when he played for Georgetown University—wouldn’t move on. Later, the cornrows and baggy shorts that made him a 1990s “fashion icon” fueled judgmental press coverage of the NBA’s “younger generation: thugs, gangsters, with me as the headliner.” Some of his tattoos and earrings were “airbrushed out” when he made the cover of a league magazine. Along with interesting anecdotes about celebrated coaches and memorable games, Iverson poignantly revisits his most trying moments. When he was a grade-schooler, his mother had to choose between keeping the electricity on and buying him sneakers—“she got me my kicks.” An accidental shooting in his boyhood home left a man seriously injured. When reporters impugned Iverson’s professionalism for missing a 76ers practice, few people realized he was grieving his best friend’s recent murder. He’s charmingly humble about acquiring new skills, describing how he learned his formidable crossover dribble from a Georgetown second-stringer. And there’s relatable vulnerability in the biggest “whiplash of my life”: Elated about winning the NBA Rookie of the Year award, the next day he was “nervous as a motherfucker” while testifying as “the man who raised me” faced criminal charges.

A basketball superstar nicknamed “the Answer” ducks no tough questions in this revealing self-portrait.