The deal is worth about $76.7 million.
PHILADELPHIA – In good times and bad times throughout his first seven seasons with the 76ers, Allen Iverson talked often about wanting to be a member of his first and only NBA team until his career ended.
He is getting his wish.
A league source told the Philadelphia Inquirer that 76ers will announce Wednesday that Iverson has agreed to a four-year contract extension worth about $76.7 million, a deal that pretty much ensures that the all-star guard will be spending the remainder of his career in Philadelphia.
Including the final year of his current deal ($13.5 million) and an option year next season ($14.625 million), Iverson’s total salary for his next six seasons will be a cool $104.8 million.
This coming season, only eight other NBA players will make more money in salary than Iverson.
The new deal will be announced Wednesday night at a party for Sixers season-ticket holders at the Wachovia Center.
The contract extension will run through the 2008-09 season. Iverson, entering his eighth season with the Sixers, will turn 34 about two months after the end of that regular season.
Iverson, now 28, is entering the final year of a six-year, $71 million contract – one that includes an option year – that he signed after the 1997-98 season. He was eager to get a new deal before too long, calling it “one of the most important things for me to get done in my life right now” in an interview last month.
“It’s important to make sure I am inked in and know where my career is going and where I am going to be and where my family is going to be,” he said. “I always said, from the beginning, that I wanted to be a Sixer until my career is over.”
The Sixers will pay Iverson handsomely for the length of the extension. According to figures obtained from an NBA source, he will be paid $16.4 million in 2005-06, when the extension kicks in. His annual salary will then increase by the NBA maximum of 12.5 percent each season, up to a high of $21.9 million in 2008-09.
Neither Billy King, the 76ers’ president and general manager, nor Leon Rose, the agent for Iverson, would comment on the report.
Life will be different for Iverson once he reports to training camp Tuesday. After six often tumultuous years with Larry Brown, he will be playing for a head coach Randy Ayers, a former assistant to Brown with whom he is familiar. All eyes will be on him to see if he will set an example, particularly at practice, where he and Brown didn’t always see eye-to-eye.
Iverson is coming off a successful summer, one that sharply contrasted with the summer of 2002, when he was arrested for allegedly threatening two men in a West Philadelphia apartment.
The charges in that highly publicized case were later dropped.
Iverson was a key member of the U.S. national men’s basketball team, which was coached by Brown and which won the gold medal at the Olympic qualifying tournament in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Although he missed the last two games with a sprained right thumb, he averaged 14.3 points and a team-high 22.9 minutes per game while shooting better than 56 percent from the field. He proved to be popular with teammates – and especially with fans – during the tournament.
Ayers, who met with Iverson last week, told reporters on Monday that he felt that Iverson has become “more relaxed” and appears “ready to assume more of a leadership role” with the Sixers.
Ayers is expected to give Iverson, normally a shooting guard, some playing time at point guard this coming season when starter Eric Snow is on the bench. Iverson played some point guard at the Olympic qualifying tournament.
The Sixers took Iverson in the first round of the 1996 NBA draft, after his sophomore year at Georgetown University. He averaged 23.5 points in his first NBA season and was named the league’s rookie of the year.
Iverson’s best season was 2000-01, when he led the NBA in scoring with a 31.1-point average and carried the Sixers into the NBA Finals, where they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers. He was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player that season.
Last season, Iverson played in all 82 regular-season games for the first time in his career, averaging 27.6 points, 5.5 assists and 2.74 steals. The Sixers finished the regular 48-34 and lost in the second round of the playoffs to the Detroit Pistons. Iverson averaged 31.7 points in 12 playoff games. He is scoring at a 30.6-point clip in his playoff career.
In the regular season, Iverson has averaged 27 points for his career, along with 4.1 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 2.38 steals and 41.3 minutes. He has led the NBA in scoring three times.
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(c) 2003, The Philadelphia Inquirer.
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AP-NY-09-23-03 1941EDT
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