Iverson on Charity, The Grizzlies Feed the Children and the NBA Takes Out a $200M Loan

We live in a confusing world…ballers perceived as thugs get ignored when they do something good…Olympic poster-children smoke pot and get shunned despite the fact that they’ve donated enough cash to charity to rebuild a small country…and the NBA decides to take out a $200M loan to ‘assist teams’ while still overpaying a bulk of their athletes as the economy goes to hell. 12 of the NBA’s 30 teams plan to borrow between $13 million and $20 million a piece and the NBA said there’s no restriction on how the money can be used. Maybe they’ll buy more chalk? This should OUTRAGE us all…(Which teams are actually tapping the loan remains a secret-we do know the Pacers have said no, but Orlando and Sac-Town said yes.)

Anyway…last week I read an interesting article where Allen Iverson spoke pretty openly about the NBA and charity. “I just look forward to doing it. I don’t need all the publicity that comes with it. I don’t need that. When it’s time for me to get toward that gate, either He [is] gonna say, ‘Come in,’ or He [is] gonna say, ‘Turn around.’ And a camera won’t decide whether I get in or not.”

The Answer also said something that I wish would register with certain NBA charity-fakers (a-hem Lebron): “We have more impact on the world than people may think, than even we might think, you know what I mean? When I was younger, when we talk about role-model-type situations, I never knew that we were important like we are.” The doe-eyed, freshly de-braided hottie continued, “We are role models, regardless if we like it or not. It is something that we got to accept, but it is something that people should know that we’re human and we make mistakes and we are not going to be perfect. You can want to be like Allen Iverson, but I don’t think people should try to be like Allen Iverson. I think people should be better than Allen Iverson.”

Iverson has also made no bones about calling the NBA’s charity work “fake.” Not sure what Iverson’s definition of ‘fake’ is, but I’ll agree that it’s somewhat more of a business than sincerity on behalf of the Organization-but this doesn’t mean the players aren’t interested in participating.

One team that’s registered as ‘genuine’ in my book: The Memphis Grizzlies. Yesterday, the boys teamed up with Feed the Children to provide free lunch and 800 boxes of food items to needy Memphis families. The event was held at the National Civil Rights Museum-making it that much more special.

The 400 families who received a food box were pre-identified by Feed The Children partner agency The Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Memphis. The boxes were designed to help supplement a family for up to one week. “We are so grateful for the players of the Memphis Grizzlies,” said Larry Jones, founder and president of Feed The Children. “We send our most sincere ‘Thank you!’ to the Grizzlies!” Indeed-sincere thank you’s to Hakim Warrick, O.J. Mayo, Rudy Gay, Darrell Arthur, and Quinton Ross for stimulating my appetite this morning. And a very special thanks to O.J. Mayo and that jug of syrup…wonder if he used it all.

As always, thanks for reading. Delinda@athlebrities.com