- [Narrator] This is Tim Hardaway,
a small great NBA point guard,
famous for beating defenders
with his deadly crossover dribble.
This is Allen Iverson, a smaller, greater NBA point guard,
even more famous for beating defenders
with his deadly crossover dribble.
And so there's your problem right there.
(suspenseful music)
Let's just state upfront that this is a low heat beef.
These guys don't seem to hate each other.
It's something else, something smaller.
Perhaps the first indication
that the Tim Hardaway versus Allen Iverson feud is unique
is its most thorough documentation to date.
Chapter 11 of Mike Prada's excellent book, "Spaced Out".
What is beef doing in a book about NBA's strategy,
philosophy, skills, and rules?
I'm so glad you asked.
This chapter is about dribbling
and dribbling was Tim Hardaway's calling card.
Hardaway arrived in the NBA in 1989 with a distinctive,
wonderfully named signature move.
The point guard from the University of Texas, El Paso
was short and stout and not a terrific shooter,
but wielded a crossover dribble
so effective at flooring defenders
that they called it the UTEP two-step.
After Hardaway humiliated a few NBA players with the move,
it came to be known as the killer crossover.
Here is the best example of Hardaway's crossover
from very early in his career.
A speedy right, left, right dribble to open a driving lane,
as if by magic.
The defender was in the way,
but then with a pop pop, he's over here.
And that defender was Isiah Thomas,
the premier little point guard of the moment,
not to mention an avid crossover artist himself.
Hardaway credited Thomas with some inspiration for the move.
Isaiah, after getting his ankles broken, said,
man, I should steal some of his moves.
Which is to say Tim Hardaway didn't invent
the crossover dribble, he just made it his thing.
He made it cool for a new era.
He proudly took the torch from guys like Isiah
and carried it into the nineties.
Hardaway and his killer crossover led a super fast,
super fun Golden State Warriors team
that got its own nickname, Run TMC.
The Warriors made a couple playoff runs
and Hardaway made three consecutive all-star teams.
Nike built whole commercials around Tim's crossover.
In this one, he says he's gonna be a professor someday.
He knows he's qualified because...
- [Tim] "Every night I take five guys to school."
- [Narrator] I think that's a bus driver's job, Tim,
but I get your point.
Anyway, this is stardom.
The killer crossover helped Hardaway build
his success and his brand.
It put points on the board and its sold shoes.
As Isiah Thomas's legendary career concluded,
Hardaway looked ready to spend the decade
as basketball's premier little guy, and then he got hurt.
Hardaway tore a ligament in his knee
and missed the entire '93-'94 season.
When he returned, his team was in disarray.
'94-'95 was dreadful.
Tim's numbers dipped, he hurt his wrist,
and the Warriors sucked.
Hardaway started to feud with teammates,
so Golden State dumped him in a 1996 mid-season trade
to the Miami Heat.
A big chunk of Hardaway's athletic prime had been wasted
on rehabilitation and losing.
Tim now would have to rebuild his stardom, the success,
the reputation, and the brand, basically from scratch.
That summer, Allen Iverson turned pro.
Iverson was in so many ways, like Tim Hardaway,
with all the sliders pushed further.
Iverson was even smaller, a little faster,
a little bouncier, and a lot more popular as a prospect.
The Philadelphia 76ers drafted themselves
a ready-made star.
And when Allen wanted to beat you off the dribble,
he wielded a deadly crossover.
It looked different from Tim's.
Watch how Hardaway splats Avery Johnson
by keeping his dribble low, tight, and staccato.
Bop bop and done.
Prada calls this an in-the-box move.
Iverson's legendary rookie year cross up of Michael Jordan
typifies his wider, looser crossover,
lulling the defender to sleep
with a couple languid, hanging dribbles, then accelerate.
One problem though.
The NBA rule book says,
"A ball handler shall not run without dribbling".
And after picking up his dribble, can't start a new one.
Iverson's crossover tested that boundary.
It drew whistles almost as soon as he tried it
on an NBA court.
Weeks into Allen's career,
NBA officials were studying tape
of that wide hanging dribble to see if it constituted
a carry.
They thought it usually did.
Like the officials, media and fans weighed in,
which makes sense.
It's their job to watch and assess.
That wasn't necessarily Tim Hardaway's job,
but he, more than anyone else,
took up the case against Iverson's crossover.
On the occasion of their first ever matchup,
Hardaway said the stuff you'd expect from a veteran
facing the new hot shot.
He wanted to show Iverson he was still a rookie.
He took pride in defending him well.
Just regular competitive stuff.
But Tim also specifically called out the crossover.
He said Iverson carried the ball.
So this establishes two long running trends.
The first is Hardaway relishing his matchup with Iverson
and treating it like a rivalry.
The rivalry had its moments, but it never turned into beef.
Perhaps because of the age difference
and just minimal overlap.
Iverson played like a star immediately,
but the Sixers weren't good during his first few seasons.
Hardaway meanwhile totally rekindled his excellence
in Miami.
He got back to making all star teams
and even receiving MVP consideration
while young Iverson got snubbed.
The Heat had some excellent contending seasons
and kicked the crap out of the Sixers every time
they faced off for years.
By the time Iverson truly took over,
2001 when the Sixers made the finals
and Iverson broke out as League MVP and a cultural icon,
Hardaway was well into his thirties.
His career wound down soon thereafter.
They never faced off in the postseason
or anything like that.
So while Hardaway got up for Sixers games
and always had something to say about Iverson's play
and sometimes seemed threatened by Iverson's fame,
there was never real beef on the court.
The stakes just weren't there.
However, there's still the second thing,
that other trend established the moment Tim Hardaway
met Allen Iverson.
Throughout Iverson's rookie season,
Hardaway played crossover police.
Iverson's move is "a double dribble".
It's "a carry", "he has to learn".
To the extent that Iverson acknowledged this critique,
it was always playful.
Like Hardaway, Iverson sold sneakers with his crossover.
This late nineties Reebok commercial
mocks all that belly aching about whether it was a travel.
- [Announcer] A player shall not run with the ball.
- [Allen] And people respect it.
- [Announcer] Without dribbling it.
- [Narrator] Yes, that background voice
was someone reading from the NBA rule book,
which you don't hear a lot in commercials.
When both guys sat down for a TV segment
about their crossovers, Tim claimed supremacy.
- I still think mine's the sweetest.
- [Narrator] Iverson didn't seem to care.
- [Interviewer] Who has the better crossover then?
- I would say um... me and Kobe.
But Tim's not far away, if not better.
- [Narrator] Even if Iverson wouldn't take the bait,
Hardaway's fixation remained.
Here he is on national television in 2000.
Just can't let it go.
- Iverson's dribble is a carry
and that's why they callin' it.
- [Narrator] As time passed and Iverson became an icon,
his crossover kind of superseded the written rule.
Fewer and fewer of his borderline carries got whistled.
Other point guards came to emulate
that version of the crossover.
As in so many other realms,
Allen Iverson pulled the game in his direction
and everyone kind of moved with it.
But not Tim Hardaway, even well after retirement.
In 2016, Iverson became Hall of Fame eligible.
He was an obvious first ballot inductee,
not so for Hardaway.
He had been eligible for years,
but got passed over again while repenting
for some truly nasty stuff he had said in public.
Months after Iverson's induction,
Hardaway spoke to nba.com's, Scott Howard-Cooper.
The article stuck to Tim's Hall of Fame disappointment
and his lingering hopes of recognition.
Hardaway had nothing to say about Iverson beating him
to the Hall.
How could he?
Iverson proved to be the better, luckier,
more impactful, more successful player.
But then, Howard Cooper tweeted an outtake
from the interview.
There it was again, decades later,
Hardaway said, "Iverson carried the ball" on his crossover
and planted his flag in this one tiny little corner
of history.
The crossover isn't his move, it's my move.
"They're still trying to perfect my move."
This is not entirely convincing since, you know,
basically everyone gets away with Iverson's looser version
of the crossover these days.
They're doing Allen's move.
Iverson like always, had jokes.
Although this one was beefier than usual.
Yeah, "I carried my crossover",
carried it all the way into the Hall of Fame.
This did not stifle Hardaway's holy war
against false crossovers.
During a first take appearance in 2019,
Stephen A. Smith, a Philly guy,
ranked Iverson's move above Hardaway's.
Tim attempted in vain to physically correct the record.
- Just pull it off.
- [Narrator] His reasons were the usual.
- You didn't say carry. - I'm gonna give it up.
- You didn't say carry, you said crossover.
- [Narrator] That turned into a debate about overall legacy.
But Tim always knew he was beat in that regard.
That's why he stayed on message in future appearances.
- Well I think he carried.
You know, I just think he carried
and they, you know, and they let him carry.
- [Narrator] That last bit acknowledged the shift in rules,
but Tim insisted organized basketball wasn't the venue
for crossover purity anyway.
- But when you have referees
and the NBA, high school let you do it,
or you know, college lets you do it, then it's all right.
So you gotta grow with it, but in the park,
we would've stopped that.
- [Narrator] And for those reasons,
Hardaway would always put himself first
in any ranking of crossovers.
When Hardaway finally got his Hall of Fame call up in 2022,
his speech made no mention of Iverson,
but his presenters included the Run TMC guys,
Chicago legend, Yolanda Griffith, and Isaiah Thomas.
I think this holds a key to our beef.
Entering the nineties, Hardaway represented
a sort of changing of the guard.
In taking over as the NBA's best little guy
and foremost crossover practitioner,
Tim took a moment to pay tribute to Isaiah.
But Hardaway's reign ended sooner than he expected.
His career hit a snag at the same moment
the NBA welcomed a little guy with generational talent,
a ton of fans, and a literal game-changing crossover.
To the extent that Hardaway used his crossover to win games
and draw attention, Iverson did it better and for longer.
Hardaway doesn't deny the product,
but he continues to nitpick the means of production.
Why?
Maybe Tim Hardaway envies Allen Iverson's legacy.
Maybe Iverson didn't give Hardaway enough credit
when he took over or respect their rivalry quite enough.
And yeah, maybe, just maybe, it's kind of a carry.