Lou Williams was once forced to drink a 6-pack of beer for $15,000 during his rookie season with the Philadelphia 76ers by Allen Iverson and co.
Advertisement
The Philadelphia 76ers were on the very tail-end of their chance to compete for Playoff contention, let alone a championship by the time the 2005-06 season rolled around. Allen Iverson was still one of the best scorers in the NBA and was the cornerstone of the franchise but other than him, the roster was made up of young guys and vets.
With them going 38-44 and missing the Playoffs, the two good things about the season for Allen Iverson were the fact that Maurice Cheeks returned to the franchise and that they drafted Lou Williams.
Lou-Will was chosen by the Sixers 15th overall in the 2015 NBA Draft, joining promising youngsters like Andre Iguodala and Kyle Korver as the future of the 76ers. From the get-go however, AI felt a special connection to Williams.
Like Magic Johnson being Kareem’s rookie, Lou Williams was Iverson’s rookie. This led to the usual rookie hazing with one prank being notable in particular.
Allen Iverson, Matt Barnes, and Chris Webber got Lou Williams drunk.
During his rookie season 2005-06, Lou Williams was under AI’s wing for the most part. With him getting hazed by his mentor, he’d have to stay on his toes quite often. On an episode of All the Smoke, Matt Barnes and Williams chopped it up over a specific incident that took place where they bribed Lou into drinking a 6-pack of beer.
“We made a bet that he had to drink a 6-pack. He’s fresh out of high school and that (expletive) killed it!” said Barnes. Lou continued on by saying, “They said I couldn’t drink a 6-pack of beer before we got on the plane for $15,000.”
Of course, with Williams still having been a teenager, he couldn’t exactly hold his liquor all too well so he was quite drunk by the time he had to board the team plane to get to their next game of the week. This was quite an unfortunate circumstance as they had to fake him being sober due to him being underage.
“He kind of had his arm slumped on AI’s shoulder and then me and Chris Webb was kind of in front. He was still there but he was- he handled himself well but he was f**ked up. You know what I mean? So had to kind of camouflage his a** up onto the plane,” said Barnes.
Despite the pranks and the hazing, the connection that exists between Allen Iverson and Lou Williams could not be more genuine. Lou worshipped the ground that AI walked on and the latter only wanted the future 6MOTY to achieve everything he ever wanted.
