Iverson told ESPN columnist Scoop Jackson that former Detroit Pistons head coach Michael Curry “lied†to him about coming off the bench instead of starting.
“They told me, straight up, ‘Allen we would never disrespect you or your career like that’ by making me come off the bench,” Iverson said in an interview with ESPN.com. “That’s what they told me to my face. And after that, I never thought about it again. I just went back to playing. Then, they came to me saying that they felt it would be in the ‘best interest of the team’ if I came off of the bench behind Rip (Richard Hamilton).
“… After that, they told me that if I didn’t come off the bench — the team was going to lie down [not play] on me. … When he told me that, that’s when I felt that this was the worst career move I’d ever made and it was the worst year of my career.”
