“Why are you coming?”

That’s the question NBL legend Jason Cadey asked Allen Iverson to “answer” after spoiling the NBA icon’s run on the Australian tour, including appearing as a special guest at Hoopsfest.

Iverson’s Australian tour was a disappointment, with die-hard fans and even his children losing hundreds of dollars out of their pockets due to closed-door events and canceled commitments without customers fulfilling their paid fees.

Kady praises former NBA MVP in latest edition Cut to Jace.

“Allen Iverson wasn’t brought to Australia by the NBL… something was going on where he met in Australia and the NBL listened. They obviously found an agreement to get him into Hoopsfest so he could be part of it,” he said.

“I landed (at Hoopsfest) on Thursday and by the time I landed I could already hear how hard he was and how bad a show it was. He was late and didn’t talk much, and in the first interview they managed to ask him how Australia was and he just laughed and said, ‘I haven’t left the room.’

“If something like this is going to happen, I always wonder why I came here.

First of all, he’s already here, he’s in Perth, but he’s probably never flown that far. But he was late to things, showing up to a few games, maybe 10 minutes or so, then quickly getting up and leaving. Larry Kestelman in the building, who’s the billionaire… They basically have to work out a deal just to take a picture with Larry Kestelman, and I think Larry is paying him something to be there. ”

As part of his role with NBL and its Next Stars program sponsor STEPONE, Caddy attended an event on Rottnest Island with NBL owners, partners and CEOs, which featured Iverson as a special guest, and he couldn’t have been more disappointed.

“People who knew me knew I wasn’t that big of a deal and I wasn’t one to bother people to take pictures, but I was like an AI. Most of us were in a similar age group and we grew up and we all had love or watched Allen Iverson play and looked up to him and he was a little guard,” he said.

“Iverson comes and speaks. He comes into the room and speaks. He speaks well for about seven or eight minutes, then he lets go of the microphone and just walks away, and that’s it. Apparently there was supposed to be a photo taken, there was supposed to be some time to socialize, but (he) was out. That was it.”

“In my head, I actually said to myself, ‘Please take a picture with AI so I don’t disturb you because there aren’t that many people here, there were only about 30 people there. I just went out and went out and I never saw him again. I think he showed up to the Perth game that night for about 10 minutes and that was the last time I saw him over the weekend.

“But I remember talking to some of the players, I won’t say who, but it was one of the imports. He was sitting there and I think he had already heard it and he said, ‘Oh, I’m so disappointed…He’s a player that we all grew up loving and to hear that no one has time to talk about it…it’s disappointing, like disappointing.’

Kady said Iverson’s efforts stand in stark contrast to those of legends like Carmelo Anthony, who was a special guest at the inaugural HoopsFest, and Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, who attended last October’s NBLxNBA game against the New Orleans Pelicans.

“Going back to last year, Carmelo Anthony was in town. Carmelo Anthony walked past practice and obviously Montrezl Harrell was on the team, and Carmelo stopped, walked over, and started saying hi to the whole team. There was no need for that, I wasn’t there for that. I think practice kind of stopped because Carmelo was there and Mike (Wells) said hello to him. I thought that was cool. he said.

“Later last year, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen went out to dinner with people and were in a setting where they said hello, and they were approachable and easy to greet people.

“So this experience feels like I was really let down by someone I really looked up to.

“Someone said, ‘Imagine if this was Kobe.’ And someone else said, ‘No, Kobe wouldn’t do that. He would sit there and watch every game.'”

Iverson’s lack of effort to meet and spend time with fans in Australia extended to post-Hoopsfest events, including not showing up at an event in Melbourne, with NBL legend Chris Anstey posting his anger on social media.

“I got a message from a friend and took my son to an event in Brisbane. Tickets weren’t cheap, but the show was shown 30 minutes late, he jumped on the microphone, left immediately after what was supposed to be a handshake, and took pictures,” Kady said.

“He said to his son, “I want you to take a picture,” but they said they weren’t going to take pictures and left.

I’ll leave that.