The Pretense of a Name: An NBA Story

Shareef Abdur-Rahim

"'The Future'...that was a nickname I got leading up to my getting drafted back in 1996. I was just coming off a really strong year at UC-Berkeley, the Cal Golden Bears, and it was looking like I was gonna maybe get to be a top draft pick in the NBA, which being only 19, was a place that I was very fortunate to be at. I guess maybe some of the fans and analysts, the scouts, and maybe even some of the players, too, saw my game and my size and felt that I was the beacon for a new type of player, because of my skill set and my range of abilities on the court. I played everywhere in my prep career, but in college, I was a 5, I was a 4 and I played the 3 a bit, too, and it was natural for me to do any of that. With Kevin Garnett being so tall and long and being a small forward in the league, I guess people supposed that I was of a similar makeup or would have similar impacts, but KG was very explosive around the basket-with me, I'd say I had a smoother game, probably a bit understated, versatile, but that's always been my game.

"I think 'The Future' being a sort of title for me, in the end, was less about me and my career in-depth, and probably is best understood as me sort of looking like the first of the type of big men that the NBA would begin to start seein'. Not to say that I didn't do well for myself individually or actually live up in some way to being the forerunner of that new wave of guys, but you know...being with losing teams didn't help bring along my profile and the different things that I was doing on the court, so in a way, many people didn't see the things that would lead my peers and some of the fans from early on to call me 'The Future'. But, if you look who came after me, guys like Nowitzki or Tyson Chandler (who people thought might develop more of a perimeter game) to Andrea Bargnani and Chris Bosh or even my rookie teammate in Sacramento, Donte' Greene, who at 6'11" came in the league for his three-point shooting and ability to penetrate like a smaller player, those guys are maybe the derivative of what people saw in me. Rasheed, even, but he was in the same draft as Kevin, in '95, but he even took it farther than me, I think; and really later on, I played less of the small position and really found my niche in the post, where I did most of my work, so I really came in looking like a non-traditional player earlier, but I grew later to be more of what you see as the status quo for guys my size. By the time I started really getting recognized for my play around the league, when I was in Atlanta, I was already basically a four-man, so it didn't really matter how many spots I could play at-the low block to the elbow was really my territory on the floor.

"In the end, though, no matter what is said about what my potential was, or the slot I was drafted at in Vancouver, or the injuries, or the later teams I played for after Atlanta, it's still significant to me that I left a mark on the league, and that I had Allah to give me the gifts to show the world what I could do. I do wish that I could've done more, maybe have been on more winning teams and not have the problems with the knee like I did there at the end, but I played 12 good years, and most of those were real productive for me and my family, and I have no regrets. I got to live in one of the most beautiful places in North America for five years, I was able to come home to Atlanta and become an All-Star there, and even being in Portland and Sacramento, I was still able to appreciate making those places home, even if I didn't really expound on much of what I intended to do. I just can't say enough about how thankful I am to have lived the life I have."

One of the most telling things about Shareef Abdur-Rahim as an NBA player was not his talent or even just the superficial fact that he was Muslim. Neither of those things or much of any other thing about his professional career took precedence over the fact that he was largely seen as a loser, which in hindsight is sort of sad if you followed him from an early point, because he had considerable talent. Only once did he make an All-Star team and only once did he make the playoffs, which didn't happen until he became a complimentary player with the Sacramento Kings, alongside Mike Bibby, Ron Artest and Brad Miller. It's sad, really, because his being "The Future" was really based upon him being a new type of frontcourt player-strong enough to play power forward or center, but quick, agile and skilled enough to play small forward with equally productive ability. Having averaged 18.7 PPG and 7.8 RPG, Reef was no doubt a good player, but he had the unfortunate circumstance for playing with the wrong teams at the wrong times.

In his Vancouver stint with the Grizzlies, Abdur-Rahim had a pitiful cast of characters which included a digressing Bryant Reeves and a disappointing rookie in Antonio Daniels, after which he was traded for the Atlanta Hawks' No. 3 pick in the 2001 Draft, which became Pau Gasol; he also missed out on playing with guard Jason Williams, who was partly responsible for turning the Memphis Grizzlies into a playoff team. In Atlanta, he was an immediate All-Star in the 2001-2002, but suffered the likes of sharing the ball with Isaiah "J.R." Rider and Lorenzen Wright among all others. He was traded for Rasheed Wallace to the Portland Trail Blazers and mysteriously was not given much of a chance to produce under then-coach Maurice Cheeks, who failed to start Shareef and was eventually fired. The Kings acquired Reef as a free agent in 2005, after the New Jersey Nets reneged on a deal with Abdur-Rahim after his knees were given a poor review, which was a sign for the not-so-distant future. After two moderately productive (and lackluster) seasons with the Kings, his last official season in 2007-08 was a near-wash and he ended his career after failing to bring his arthritic knee up to speed. Because of the lack of exposure from playing on terrible teams in most of his career, most fans didn't ever really get a great handle on the player that Shareef actually was. In effect, The Future never really came to be-at least as was expected.

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Paul Pierce

"Maaaaaan, Shaq gave me that nickname a while back when I was playing in L.A. I think it could've been my second or third year in the league and I had a really great night there-I just went off, and I can't remember who won or who lost, but it was a good game, and Shaq was just like, 'He's the muthaf**kin' Truth!' (laughing)...and it was just one of those things that sort of stuck for the cats that know me in the league (or got to know me that night! [laughing]).

"You know, it's an honor when anyone sees what you can do and praises you for it, because you know, there were times early when people weren't sure I'd make it. I won't act like I didn't have some talent, because I did, but you know, comin' out of Inglewood and not really many of the cats from my old neighborhood did much, beyond gang-bang, sell drugs, which you know usually ends up with prison or the graveyard; but Shaq gave me a good look, man, I'll tell ya. Him, Kobe, them dudes are my boys and they're future Hall of Famers at that? With me, I just work, work, even when things weren't looking so good here in Boston, man, I just worked. I knew that I had some talent, and Coach Roy knew that he had somethin' when I was at Kansas, and he helped me lock in and be much of the player that I am today. I kept shootin' and workin' on everything in my offensive game, and I don't personally think I have a bonafide weakness with the ball, and my defense has even gotten better from year to year. If anything's the truth about me, it's that even my weaknesses are my strengths now-I feel like the best player in the world. No-I AM the best player in the world."

Don't let Shaquille O'Neal or anyone else fool you about Paul Pierce-while he was and has always been a extremely gifted player, especially at his size (6'6" and hovering closer to 250 lbs. than his media-listed playing weight of 230 lbs. as a guard and small forward), P-Double was being called a loser behind closed doors for a substantial amount of time. Fair or unfair assessment alike, having failed to win the national championships at Kansas that many experts and media members (as well as those among the basketball circles) anticipated, Pierce entered a situation with the Boston Celtics that grew to be promising when he was with the "Employee No. 8", Antoine Walker; but after the team flamed out after its flirtation with Finals-talk after losing to the New Jersey Nets deep in the 2002 Eastern Conference Finals and Walker was traded, Pierce sulked and pouted his way through an insatiably bad four-year period from 2003-2007, where the Celtics drifted farther and farther away from being anything resembling a winning basketball team; Pierce's acrimonious body language soon became a sticking point of his critics and fans alike. Having been assisted greatly with the presence of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen as his running buddies, Pierce is likely to be remembered much differently-as an NBA champion-and it's good for him. But don't let anyone tell you any differently about the truth about The Truth, because The Truth himself might tell you that he had a little luck going for the remembrance of his NBA legacy. Maybe.

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Allen Iverson

"You know at the time I came to Philadelphia, there was a lot going on around me-or least, there was a lot of talk, a lot of critics, sayin' a lot of things about me. And you know me-I'm not one to back down from anything, especially on the court. My whole game was made to be an answer to some of the things that people said about me. I went to jail, young, over some bulls**t, and by the grace of God, I came outta that situation and Coach Thompson scooped me up down at Georgetown; and I really appreciate all that he's done for me, he's my dad as far as I'm concerned. I became 'The Answer' under him; I became 'The Answer' there.

"In Philly, I was getting all sorts of backlash from the league. Cats didn't know...didn't know how to 'handle' me, and it wasn't that I was lookin' for trouble, but...they couldn't understand a young black man, covered with tattoos and wearin' braids, cornrows, and dressing the way that I was dressin'. 'Awwww, he's too thuggish' or 'He's a criminal' are some of the things that I used to get, but most of that stuff didn't have anything to do with what I was in the league for, which has always been to play the game I love. I love this game, man, and I carried that criticism...that affected me so deep, man...so I just played like I was answering the world. The crossovers, the drives to the basket and all that, that's me, man. I can only play like I know how to play. I was my own answer to all the people that hated me or had something negative to say about me; but that makes me feel good that I have fans, too, man, because they showed love. They helped Allen Iverson be the man, the basketball player he is today, because it showed me that there are people who ain't puttin' stock into all that heresay, man. My fans, Reebok, my family, the Sixers, man, they invested a lot in me and showed love that I never thought I would receive. I know I was a knucklehead a little bit, when I was younger, but the world just had to bear with me. The kind of changes I had to make to make sure I was doin' alright...I mean, I became a millionaire overnight and I just had to learn to come up with my own answers for some of the questions I had about the world I was living in-and I'm still trying to answer a few today."

Allen Iverson has had one of the most unique careers in NBA history, in the sense that he represented the shift of eras and the realization of hip hop culture on a popular level, which both aided and cursed him as a player and person. One of the biggest curiosities about him was that he was called "The Answer", but in reality, most of the questions that were Iverson-centric were left with little or no rebuttal or response. In essence, Iverson was the answer to what the NBA was going to be, post-1998 Michael Jordan. It was clearly a league that was changing and the fan base of the NBA was going to have to adjust its collective lens and refocus on new faces, after the likes of the greats of the Nineties exited their primes, a decade which was known for its superstars and abundance of them from the East to the West Coast (many of those players being original from the 1992 "Dream Team"); as said players either retired (Jordan, Clyde Drexler, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson) or wound down (David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen, etc.), Iverson represented the new breed of player in a way that embodied the best of what the next talents would showcase in future years.

While a troubled character who was beaten upon for his appearance and laissez-faire for practice among other subjects, A.I. became an icon in his Finals 2000-2001 campaign, in which he also won the league MVP award-and the league adjusted to him and grew with him, as he also turned in a couple of noteworthy MVP-esque seasons in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons. In the latter stages of his Hall of Fame career, Iverson has somehow left himself between a rock and a hard place, as his stints with the Denver Nuggets and particularly and most recently, the Detroit Pistons, maimed his reputation to such a degree that most teams in the Association currently want nothing to do with him. As much as been said about the sub-six-footer, A.I. was probably more of a question than anything having remotely to do with an answer-and no one else has responded with anything that has done him justice on the hardwood.

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