Lou Williams might have got just one year to play with Allen Iverson, but the Hawks guard made the most of it and became a one-of-a-kind scorer in the league.
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Allen Iverson, much like Michael Jordan, is a basketball god to many and especially for Lou Williams. The Atlanta Hawks guard is one of the NBA’s all-time great scorers of the bench, arguably the greatest.
Williams was fortunate enough to be picked up by the Philadelphia 76ers as the 45th overall pick in 2005. AI being his idol also had something to do with that selection.
Although Iverson was approaching his end with the organisation that year after having a legendary 10-year career that only lagged a championship, Lou had enough time to live to his childhood dream, which he never thought would come true in real life.
“For me, it was mind-blowing because I spent my whole high-school career modelling my game after this dude. He was literally the reason why I started getting tattoos, and he was so influential in my life, and I didn’t even know this cat. He was a role model to me that I didn’t even know. Going to the league, I’m like sh*t, that is my teammate now.” Williams once said in his appearance on All The Smoke podcast.
Lou Williams worshipped Allen Iverson since childhood
In a recent podcast appearance with Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles’ Knuckleheads for the Player’s Tribune, Williams talked about his first meeting with the “The Answer”. Listen to it here.
Just coming into the league from high school and getting embraced by one of the game’s biggest names and his idol must have been mesmerizing. Hearing about how other stars and veterans treated their rookies, it’s admirable to know how warmly the 2001 MVP treated this 19-year-old kid.
Sure he showed Lou some tough love as well to make him ready for the league, which in future will have him move around six teams despite being an efficient and proven scorer who could lead a team’s scoring department whenever asked for.
The all-time leading bench scorer of the NBA has earned 3x Sixth Man of the Year awards and has scored over 15,500 career points in 17 seasons, playing just 24 minutes per game coming off the bench.
