#29 - Allen Iverson is Kate Austen

Fuck. Been waiting on this one for a minute. LET ME REITERATE- this list by ESPN is RANKING the NBA players and my list is NOT RANKING the ‘Lost’ characters. I’m just reiterating that for the dozenth time because THAT’S HOW MUCH I LIKE SOME OF THESE ‘LOST’ CHARACTERS. So, NOT FOR A SECOND, do you get the chance to think that I am not ride or die with the King herself Kate Austen. Yes, she’s a King. She’s royalty both in America and on THE island and on our television sets. King Kate Austen, a true icon as a thief, a fighter, a crier, a lover, a fighter, a friend, a killer, a tracker, a caretaker, a bank robber, a passionate low rise jean wearer, a liar, a moral compass, a rising phoenix of a well-tailored blazer with skirt or suit pants wearer, an avid climber, and, strangely, a complete innocent as to how a towing cable works on a truck. I very much am a big fan of Kate Austen. And that is one reason as to why Kate is one of my favorite basketball players of all-MOTHERFUCKING-time Allen “The Answer” Iverson. 

As mentioned on the Michael Dawson/Patrick Ewing post, I’ve been trying not to think forward about who is on this list and who they are in the ‘Lost’ world of my brain aka the correct and only comparison, but some bballers are going to jump into my brain and I know they’re going to be on the list and it’s impossible for me to not think about who they be. So, AI was going to be on this list, for sure, and, at the same time, I know that Kate has to be tied to someone that I love/respect/rooted for as that only makes fucking sense and while Kate is easily one of my favorite characters on ‘Lost’ and would really want to make sure I nail who she is correctly- it was fucking easy because ALLEN MOTHERFUCKING IVERSON would be on this list and that’s who the fuck Kate is. Kate is AI. AI is Kate Austen. BOOM! 

A big fucking punch in a small package. That’s for damn sure. THAT’S FOR DAMN SURE about the both of these lovely people that I root for. Allen, don’t make me cry, Allen is probably the last college bballer I got into. INTO. College hoops has changed so much in my lifetime and once there were perennial stars and really there are not anymore and it’s on them as the NCAA both in basketball and football (and all sports, really) are corrupt as all fuck and they don’t deserve stars, but they fucked up and college hoops doesn’t have stars the way they used to. I know Zion was big for like 3 weeks or whatever, but it ain’t the same. Anyway, Allen was on that cusp before college ball almost ceased to exist when EVERYONE was coming out of high school and Allen was a part of a time in college hoops where there were stars and I also didn’t HATE the NCAA. In college ball, it isn’t as surprising to see a big fucking punch in a small package as you see that in NCAA college football all the time. Dude’s can out-athlete one another in college in a myriad of ways that just do not apply to pro sports as all the out-athlete-ers are now playing together and against each other. BUT Allen took his big fucking punch in a small package - 6’ and like 170 pounds - from Georgetown (after 2 years there) and into the pros and it fucking translated, like Rosetta Stone/Duo Lingo or whatever. It translated. Allen is the shortest #1 NBA draft pick and he fucking runs wild on the NBA the way he was in college. And that’s the same draft that Kobe goes straight from high school to the pros, which Garnett was the year prior and really all of that was that downfall to the NCAA. 

Quick aside: Georgetown went to the Elite 8 and then the following year Allen goes to the pros and is Rookie of the Year and averaging 30 points a game for a dogshit team. It doesn’t necessarily matter, but I think Allen could’ve taken Georgetown to the finals, if not won the NCAA tournament single-handedly that next year. 

I feel like I have way too much to say about Allen and it will go in a ton of directions that really won’t ever reconnect with anything to do with ‘Lost’ or the point of this blog, but I love Allen. As a competitor, as an athlete- Allen is like no other. If you’ve seen any of the footage of him playing football in high school, it’s insane and he could’ve played pro football if he wanted to. His high school competitive career, which was full of success after success was cut short as he was sent to jail over what was a supremely racist ass incident and it wasn’t Central Park 5 level stuff, but it was close. Tom Brokaw was doing interviews with Iverson in prison in Virginia when he should’ve been in high school and there’s a whole documentary about it and it really shows what a great man John Thompson is that he got Georgetown to give Iverson a deserved scholarship. Anyway, Allen is 6’ at best and fucking wiry like Bruce Lee and he was a monster on the court. He may not have been able to elevate a team around him in ways that some players like Michael Jordan or Lebron or whoever who can, but he was a guy putting it all out there and bleeding and giving it all in that way for a team. He also never had a ‘great’ team around him, but I’m not going to go into that. Allen was a monster as himself on the court, a force of nature who was THE league MVP, 4x scoring champ, and 3x stealing champ (3 straight years). With the ball in his hands, offensively or defensively he was the best. And it’s all that more impressive with his size as he’s the #25 all-time scorer at present and he’s the shortest of all those guys by 3 inches to the next guy being Jerry West, 5 inches to the next grouping of guys, but 6 or 7 or way more to the majority of guys above him. AND Allen did it in not many games. Being a 4x scoring champ, obviously, means he was scoring a lot - he had FIVE seasons where he was averaging over 30 points a game. The offense, yes, funneled through him and in that he could be selfish and in that there’s the same criticism I gave Harden, but yeah also who the fuck is he passing to in some of those years. 6’ tall and 25,000+ points- c’mon. And the dude was just relentless- he played 40+ minutes a game for like 12 full seasons. Just something else. 

Kate! Ok, let’s just fucking start doing it already, Kate is fucking tiny and fucking tough, Kate is a stealer/thief artist like AI, Kate is a ball in her hands type as she orchestrates a bank robbery to get to a safety deposit box she opened at some other time in her life and put her brother’s childhood toy in it and now can’t just waltz into a bank and get that withdrawn because the cops are looking at her for murder, Kate is always getting into shit and leading the charge into the jungles of THE island even with the damn smoke monster wrecking shit out there, Kate’s always playing people off of each other and always quick to have a gun in her hand taking on whatever and whoever, Kate is climbing shit all the time and jumping over fences and fighting people, Kate’s been to jail, Kate’s getting chased around the world like AI’s getting chased around the court, Kate’s just full on punching people bigger than her all the fucking time like AI driving the lane right into traffic of 7 footers with no care for his own well-being, Kate’s winning over hearts and minds as everyone’s either bffs with Kate like Sun/Jin/Claire or they’re like full on in love with her like Sawyer/Jack just like AI was easily one of the most popular players in the league for years he was like the most famous dude on All Star East for like a decade or until like Lebron shows up in 2003, and both just fucking style icons.

Gonna do a not so quick aside about AI as this style icon that I almost wrote about a paragraph ago and skipped and now I feel like I just have to say. Allen really brought the tattoos and hip hop culture into the NBA. Maybe not tap dancing around it, Allen brought a Blackness to the NBA that hadn’t really been seen. There were players for sure with tattoos and all that before AI, but not like Allen. I hate to keep saying hip hop culture or rap culture, but really don’t know what else to say. Something that film, some TV, but mainly what MTV and music really highlighted about Black people in America was their voice, their modern voice and it wasn’t represented in the NBA. It’s really a voice of the youth and yes a Black voice that the youth were rallying around. It can in a way be as simple as Allen having braids and having tattoos that was quite different for a star in the NBA. Still to this day, braids are supremely controversial in this racist ass world and I really can’t think of players before him rocking them. Just looking at the All Star games in the mid 90s, the top stars in the league- a lot of shaved heads, a little hair kept close, and honestly not many tattoos. Even if you watched the NBA religiously and as many Black men are in THE league, you would be hard pressed to see an image of a Black man with braids. That’s crazy. Like Latrell Sprewell ended up growing his hair out and having braids and I think that was around the same time or maybe right after Allen. He played bald for awhile and like Rasheed Wallace had short hair for awhile. Allen’s image mattered. And he really fit in in Philadelphia and was face of a tough underdog city, a very Black tough underdog city. And I mean, we used to see him in a ton of haunts all throughout Philly and that’s not usually how it is with professional athletes. Allen was an enormous star and he also seemed like a person. Anyway… 

Kate puts a team on her back and gets shit done. She’s going to put a gun in the waistband of her low rises and grab a backpack and head into THE island’s forsaken jungle and just fucking will it. She’s going to climb a tree to get mangoes, rig up some makeshift communicator thing, fight someone, raid some The Other’s camp, she doesn’t give a fuck, Kate’s the first one into THE damn hatch. Kate doesn’t care how big the enemy is or task, she’s running the ball down their throats and she’ll be petty about it too. Kate on her fucking own delivers Claire’s fucking baby and that’s fucking AI going to the NBA Finals on his fucking back. Fucking AI against Shaq and Kobe and AI’s scoring 30+, even 40+ in the first game. Kate raising Claire’s baby off THE island is probably AI doing yeoman’s work for Denver after years in Philly and still playing 40+ minutes a game and averaging 25+ ppg. Kate is an 11x All Star for sure as she is basically involved in everything like she’s a big part of the raft storyline and doesn’t even go on the raft, but it’s big drama whether her or Sawyer are going to be that 3rd person for a few episodes. Kate shoots people like the Man in Black, Kate gets shot, Kate sews up Jack in the first episode, Kate gets sewn up by Jack, and just involved in everything. I know AI put up a fuck ton of shots, but man Kate is laying down fire with pistols and rifles and shotguns throughout. 

And who could say no to either one of these little devils cute ass faces? Seriously, whose got a better wry smile than Allen and Kate? They’re just likeable and there’s something adorable about them and dangerous about them. And ultimately, they’re both tragic. Kate never gets the love of her life and never gets the happy life and really does so much and has a huge impact on others on the show, but is just running from too much that either catches up with her or can’t hold onto what she has as she keeps running. Not too many happy endings honestly on ‘Lost’, but some seem to see that moment in paradise in their grasp and it slips. And Allen as great as he was only had that one shot at the title and it was a tough one and he never got to hold up that championship. 

Fuck styles? Just got to get into it at some point and we know what Kate’s fuck style is - crying fucks. No enjoys crying and fucking at the same time more than King Kate Austen. Damn she loves to do it. It becomes literally the only way we see her kiss or fuck as the show goes on. I’m going to skip past how weird it is that men writers/directors do have women crying a lot when they kiss and fuck in TV or movies and just take it as Kate’s character’s truth and she fuckind loves to do it. So, what can we say? It’s raw for her. It’s emotional for her. It’s a lot. She’s got a lot of walls and a tough exterior and when she lets someone in, it’s tears and smooches and sexual intercourse. And yes, I do think this is how Allen Iverson is as well. Allen is a crier. Allen is an emotionally raw dude and when he cries, I cry and it happens a lot. Allen’s had a tumultuous at times relationship, but Allen’s also been married to his fucking high school sweetheart since like 2001 I think. Let’s put some respect on the name- Tawanna Turner. Allen is 45 and Allen and Tawanna have been together for like 28 years, they have 5 kids together, I think the oldest is 25, I mean Tawanna filed divorce papers once a decade ago and the two reconciled less than a month after the divorce was finalized in 2013- that’s a fucking marriage. That’s what it is. And man, I bet the dude has cried when kissing Tawanna more than one … several dozen occasions. Is sex emotional, raw, and maybe on the cusp of or even with some tears over the walls being broken down when with The Answer? I believe so. I believe so, for sure. Crossovers, PRACTICE, and, yeah, some tears during sex.