NBA fans live for what happens on the court, but nothing hits quite like a great rant when an unhinged player or coach has a microphone in front of them. David Fizdale’s “Take that for data” is legendary. Russell Westbrook has a bunch of them. J.B. Bickerstaff and Mike Brown lost it in amazing ways this year. For most fans, though, there’s no better example than when Allen Iverson went off about practice 23 years ago.
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AI has been retired for almost 12 years. His Hall-of-Fame career is pointed to by many current NBAers as inspirational to their own success and love for the game, but his rant has lived on with just as strong a legacy.
Seeing as yesterday was the anniversary of Iverson’s iconic diatribe, the Inside the NBA guys decided to pay homage to it.
“One of my favorite people and favorite players of all-time,” Charles Barkley said after listening to AI. “I wanna know how many times he said ‘practice,'” Shaquille O’Neal wondered.
May 7th is legendary! OTD in 2002 the sports world got Allen Iverson’s iconic ‘Practice’ rant! pic.twitter.com/RqAbZTjUl9
— Throwbacks (@ThrowbacksShow) May 7, 2025
For anyone else wondering, the answer of how many times “The Answer” said “practice” is 22.
Iverson’s rant has become an easy reference any time a player or coach loses it at a press conference, but as ESPN’s Matt Walks reported back in 2016, there’s actually a less-than-funny story behind what happened that day.
Allen Iverson’s “practice” rant was about more than practice
Iverson was a counterculture icon for the way he played, the way he dressed and the tattoos and braids he famously wore. That’s part of what made him so popular, but it’s also what drew the ire of the league office.
This was back in the day when having a unique personality was frowned upon by NBA commissioner David Stern. He even instituted a league-wide dress code just three years later, largely in response to Iverson’s appearance, which he deemed unbecoming of a professional athlete and a face of the league.
Iverson played college ball for Georgetown, but he was nothing like the stereotypical Capitol Hill trust fund kids who went there. He was raised on the streets and experienced the darker sides of that life. Just seven months prior to the famous rant, his best friend Rahsaan Langford had been shot and killed. He grappled with that loss all season as the 76ers failed to follow up the success of their NBA Finals appearance from the year before.
The Sixers had been knocked out of the playoffs just a few days before AI gave his “practice” speech, and the murder trial for the man accused of killing his friend had just begun. Iverson had also just clashed once again with Sixers coach Larry Brown, with whom he’d had a combative relationship for much of their time together.
That all came to a head in his rant about practice, which was really more about blame and responsibility and helplessness and a nihilistic question of does any of this even matter?
Iverson was dealing with a lot, and he got caught at a vulnerable time when everything around him was going downhill.
Taken out of context, the rant is a funny example of a player exasperated with being asked to give more than he can give. With context, the humor goes away, even if fans and Inside the NBA still forget its harsh reality.
