But just as dramatic and, maybe, just as natural. It was as jarring a sight, perhaps, as seeing Mike Tyson in a set of tights with the Bolshoi Ballet or having the chiseled visage of Richard Nixon join the great ones on the side of Mount Rushmore. Yet this is the way it had to be if his game, his league, his sport was to have continued hope to grow and flourish. For the five years he has been a professional, people have said Iverson is the changing face of the NBA and that was not always meant in a good way. But tattoos are only skin deep.
Hairstyles change and grow, just like people.
Not only was he the star of stars with 25 points, five assists and four steals, Iverson was also the reason the celebrity-filled crowd inside the MCI Center could stand after the final horn sounded with reason to believe they can still love this game. It was far less an artistic exhibition than usual and much more a truly competitive exercise, as if there were something to prove. And there was. Iverson had spent the first half of the season, as he's spent most of his troubled life, listening to people doubt not only his motives, but what's inside his heart. He wears tattoos and cornrows and bandanas and travels with his posse.