It was an odd time for the Philadelphia 76ers and it almost caused general manger Billy King to re-sign, as he said so in an interview with the New York Times.
You were president of the Philadelphia 76ers when Allen Iverson went on his famous rant at a news conference, responding to criticism that he was skipping practice. What was the back story?
Larry Brown had said he couldn’t coach Allen anymore. Allen said he couldn’t play for Larry, so they had a meeting to clear the air. After the meeting, I thought, Let’s do a press conference so that everybody knows they’re on one page. We did the press conference, and it becomes legendary. You can go online. Everybody imitates it.
It went on for half an hour on live TV. How did you feel?
I called Ed Snider and resigned because I said, This is a disaster. Later, Ed said you’re not resigning. I went to the Palm, had some Scotch, and I’m thinking, both of these guys are making a lot more money than I am, they’re in a good situation and this is what I’m dealing with.
Seems understandable.
Josh Dhani is the founder of FootBasket. You can read more about him at his website. Follow him on Twitter @joshdhani.
