King's expletive-filled explosion after Iverson and Webber arrived late for Fan Appreciation Night was his breaking point. If this is indeed Iverson's last stand here, it is just the final, hard-to-believe episode in a decade full of them.

Remember, this was the guy who told us when Maurice Cheeks was hired last May, "I want to take [King] in the back and kiss him in his mouth."

And he also said this about Cheeks:

"The way we became close is because of all the [stuff] we went through when he was here. If Mo told me to run through a brick wall, I'd do it."

Iverson's Sixers career has crashed and burned

By Sam Donnellon
Posted on Fri, Apr. 21, 2006

THERE IS this great scene in the Academy Award-winning "Crash" in which a Hollywood executive played by Terrence Howard tells a would-be carjacker played by Ludacris, "You embarrass me. You embarrass yourself."

After a career of avoiding conflict and accepting a certain level of humiliation, Howard's character, Cameron, loses it, daring Ludacris' character to shoot him, then doing the same to a posse of trigger-happy policemen.

So the comparison with the 76ers' events of this week ends there. Billy King didn't ask anybody to shoot him when he lost it this week.

But as many have pointed out, one of his career-threatening flaws has been that, like Howard's character, he has spent his career trying to smooth over problems rather than meet them head-on. Especially when it comes to Allen Iverson and, to a much lesser extent, Chris Webber. He has been patient. He has worked to defuse.

King's expletive-filled explosion after Iverson and Webber arrived late for Fan Appreciation Night was his breaking point. If this is indeed Iverson's last stand here, it is just the final, hard-to-believe episode in a decade full of them.

Remember, this was the guy who told us when Maurice Cheeks was hired last May, "I want to take [King] in the back and kiss him in his mouth."

And he also said this about Cheeks:

"The way we became close is because of all the [stuff] we went through when he was here. If Mo told me to run through a brick wall, I'd do it."

That day, Iverson also went on and on about how much he had grown as a person and player, how he planned to behave off the court and be a leader. It was a theme he repeated throughout this season. And Mo said then, "Listening to his conversation, you could hear how much he's grown in the years he has been here."

Iverson also staunchly supported King's tenure as team president. You can't help thinking about the high school kids who gleefully look forward to the part of the day when they get to walk all over some favorite teachers. Because that's what has happened here. Not just this week, but the whole awful season. Not just by Iverson and Webber, but by the likes of Samuel Dalembert, who told us in no uncertain terms after Jim O'Brien was let go that he needed more playing time to get better, that he needed the coach to trust him a little and he would blossom into the big man the Sixers so desperately needed.

Here's the real truth: Dalembert has been handed his professional basketball career because of his athleticism. He has never bothered to learn the game, because he made more money than he ever believed without needing to do so. He is a lost cause.

As is Webber. I go back and forth between my favorite quotes of the week, but it's been narrowed down to two: Iverson saying, "I had no idea it was Fan Appreciation Night or anything like that," and Webber saying in midapology, "When you're not necessarily loved by the media, the fans are all you have."

Awwwwww. Don't you feel all warm and fuzzy inside now?

By the, way did anyone else notice the unrelated headline in the Inky underneath Webber's feet yesterday?

"Fab 5¢"

If this was some editor getting away with something, congratulations. If this was just a delicious accident, congratulations anyway.

The truth is, he and the other multimillion-dollar knucklehead hung their coach and president out to dry this week, gave fuel to every fan out there who believes that cleaning house shouldn't involve only a fire sale of players, but also replacing the president/GM and coach, as well.

Can Cheeks coach? The evidence, here and in Portland, is cloudy.

Can King build and maintain an NBA contender?

At this point in his tenure, "cloudy" would be an improved forecast.

When this week started, I was all set to argue in this space that Iverson should be dealt not to help the Sixers, but to help him. He has left a lot of blood, skin and soul on the floor for the people in this town over his controversy-collaged career, and we have grown to appreciate that, even as we debate whether his game can ever mesh into a team concept - here, or somewhere else.

It's what makes his value so hard to determine, and so debatable. That, and episodes like the one the other day. I still think he deserves a shot at a title somewhere else before he's through. But if he gets dealt, Iverson should try harder to put some substance behind his words at the new place.

He might embarrass himself - and those of us left in his corner - a little less.