Starter: Allen Iverson and His Man Tears

Who is he? He's Allen Iverson, and if you don't know who A.I. is, chances are, you've stumbled onto the wrong blog. He's the feisty little dude who was drafted by the 76ers in 1996, where he became the Rookie of the Year, later led the NBA in scoring four times, and laid the groundwork for his 24,098 points (and counting). He's 34 years old and is listed at 165 pounds, yet still throws his body around as much as he can, which is a ton of fun to watch, even if age has slowed him down a bit. You probably also already know that he recently retired for a day or two before re-signing with the 76ers, where he promptly set free some pent up man tears.

Why we like him? Once again, it's the man tears (in addition to 20,000+ points and being an amazing athlete). You didn't think we would let some man tears pass without taking note of it, did you? Sure, this happened a while ago, but Iverson's retirement and subsequent unretirement told us not to rush anything because A.I. isn't going away any time soon. These man tears were respectable man tears, not Brett Favre man tears. These are man tears brought out by the same passion that drives one of the smallest guys on the court to impose his will on the game.

In case you haven't seen it, you can watch a clip of A.I.'s press conference below, but first, I can't forget to mention his nickname: The Answer. That's a great nickname. We not only like athletes with great names, but we also like great nicknames too. We'll have none of that first name initial, last name first syllable garbage like A-Rod, V-Mart, D-Wade. It's lazy, unimaginative, and says nothing about the player or their game. The Answer, on the other hand, says just about everything you'd expect about A.I.'s game.

*Photo courtesy of thanasim25 via Creative Commons License