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Allen Iverson on palming accusations: 'I carried my crossover all the way into the Hall of Fame'

Kelly Dwyer
Allen Iverson and Tim Hardaway load up. (Getty Images)
Allen Iverson and Tim Hardaway load up. (Getty Images)

Some Allen Iverson possessions took forever. He played on a lot of slow teams, especially with coach Larry Brown, but the payoff for a long, loping possession that took 15 NBA seconds to get going was usually a rapid-fire crossover that left a defender stumbling and lost in its presence. Endless waiting for a pointed, spectacular reward – that was the Allen Iverson dream for 14 seasons, and it was enough to put him into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016.

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Somehow, that turn was also enough to leave some a little unconvinced, even after four scoring titles and a memorable trip to the 2001 NBA Finals. Five-time All-Star Tim Hardaway, famed for years for his own brand of killer crossover, recently offered a fiery fake and then drive left in an interview with NBA.com’s Scott Howard-Cooper, insisting that “Allen Iverson carried the basketball” before he put his defender on skates.

In a typically fantastic interview with Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Abrams, Iverson wasted little time before dismissing Hardaway’s newish batch of burnt offerings:

B/R: Did you hear what Tim Hardaway said about your crossover?

[…]

Iverson: Yeah, I heard about it.

B/R: Any response?

Iverson: I carried my crossover all the way into the Hall of Fame. So, there you go.

Tim Hardaway, despite a fantastic career that lasted 15 seasons, is not in the Basketball Hall of Fame. It is possible that Allen Iverson is aware of this trivia.

Via Bleacher Report, here is Hardaway’s quote in full, from a talk with Scott Howard-Cooper at NBA.com:

Via Basketball-Reference.com, here are the box scores from the first (yeah, Tim) three (AI came off the bench) games (oh, rookies) in which Allen Iverson took on Tim Hardaway.

Via NBA.com’s old RealPlayer clip archive, here is Iverson crossing over Hardaway in 1999:

If you’re ready to go down a wormhole, we’ll help:

AI?

Tim(-bug):

Fred Hoiberg, thankfully, was unavailable for comment.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!