On May 7, 2002, Neil Hartman was doing a live television hit for Comcast SportsNet’s “Daily News Live” when Allen Iverson walked into the press conference room at the then-First Union Center.

Everyone was waiting for the previous season’s Most Valuable Player to speak publicly for the first time since the Sixers were trounced by Boston in a do-or-die Game 5 of the first round of the playoffs four days prior. (At the team’s cleanout day, the afternoon after the season-ending loss, Philadelphia Inquirer beat writer Ashley Fox wrote, “Preceded by a slew of television photographers filming his final steps out of the First Union Center, Iverson stopped walking, faked left, then right and dashed through them like a halfback storming through an overmatched defensive line.”)

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Hartman, on camera to the side of the podium that day, remembers that he was talking with “Daily News Live” host Michael Barkann. When Hartman saw Iverson walk into the room, he said, “Hang on a second, he’s starting right now, Michael. Here we go.” And as Iverson sat down, wearing a white T-shirt and Boston Red Sox hat, he tried his best to mimic Hartman: “He’s starting right now, Michael, let’s go.”

“You knew starting right there when he started to mimic me, ‘Oh boy, here we go,’” Hartman said.

When it comes to what ensued, everyone knows that we’re talking about practice. That answer, delivered by “The Answer,” has been replayed and impersonated so many times that it has become a part of popular culture.

But for the people who were in the room that day, the writers, reporters and members of the Sixers organization, this was a 30-minute press conference that was so much more than a single famous soundbite. (Moving forward, all quotes in italics are from Iverson that day. Iverson’s manager, Gary Moore, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

“We lost, man. It ain’t a whole bunch to that. Simple as that, we lost.”

Billy King, 76ers general manager: (The idea for the press conference) was mine. I thought it would be great, let’s have Allen talk, just saying he wants to be back and he wants to play for Larry (Brown).

Neil Hartman, Comcast SportsNet anchor: Remember, they’re coming off a horrible loss in Game 5 to the Celtics when the year earlier they were in the NBA Finals. They’re losing in the first round. So you can imagine the mentality of Allen and the players and the team getting eliminated that early.

Tom Moore, beat writer for the Bucks County Courier Times: The fit just wasn’t right. There just was something missing, and the formula had kind of changed a little bit (from the season before). … Honestly, they were lucky to win both games in Philly. They could’ve easily lost that series 3-0 or 3-1.

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Dave Coskey, 76ers vice president: Saying we lost (Game 5) is being kind. I flew home on the plane with (team owner) Ed Snider after that last game — it was not a matter of just losing. We got our asses handed to us.

Ashley Fox, beat writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer: If you look at the first five minutes or so (of the press conference), he didn’t go into it wanting to like, burn down the house. He didn’t. It kind of turned into that a little bit, but I don’t think that was his intention when he sat down at that podium.

King: Allen and Leon (Rose), his agent at the time, we arrived and met in the back locker room and talked about “this is what it’s going to be” and “pretty simple.” We all agreed, “Yeah, OK, no problem.” We talked about 15 minutes beforehand. (Sixers public relations director) Karen Frascona was there too. … Every one of us went into it (thinking) it’s going to be a regular press conference. Even Allen.

“(I) just let him know that, you know, I’m that pit bull in his yard and if anybody try to intrude, I’mma be the one that’s gonna bite and protect this home. You know, the same thing I’ve been saying from Day 1.”

After the loss to Boston, reporters from multiple outlets wondered if Iverson and Brown would be back for another season. On cleanout day, Brown added fuel to the fire.

“I love him. I love his competitiveness. I’m proud of the way he tries in every game, but the issues I have are all the things he’s in control over,” Brown said via the Inquirer. “That’s got to change. He’ll have a problem with me if that doesn’t change. Your key player’s got to be there. He’s got to be practicing. He’s got to set the example, and he knows that. If he’s willing to do that, he’ll be a Sixer for life.”

King: I scheduled a meeting (between Allen and Larry the morning of the press conference) to try to clear the air because I knew that they both were not happy. … That was a rough year. And the way that the season ended, I don’t think it ended the way anybody wanted. I think it was just frustration from the year they had.

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Larry Brown, 76ers head coach and VP of basketball operations: Maybe I’m older, I don’t remember Billy and I meeting with Allen prior to that press conference. We might have met with him at another time. … All I remember is I met Allen late that afternoon before the press conference. I think the press conference was about 6 o’clock. I met Allen about 3 o’clock and he was a little late for my meeting and I was leaving. He was in a car with a friend and said, “Where you going, coach? I’m here to meet with you.” And I said, “Well, I said 3 o’clock and I left my office at 3 o’clock. You weren’t there.” He was saying, “Coach, I’m only a couple minutes late.”

King: Everybody was on time.

Coskey: Allen was not late for the meeting.

King: I think it was earlier than 3 o’clock because if it had been 3, I don’t even know what time the press release came out that we were doing a press conference. I’m just thinking off the top of my head, by the time we were done — 4, 4:30. I don’t think we would have sent out a press release for a press conference at 6. Then it would’ve been a quick turnaround for everybody to get there.

Brown: We just had a long talk. … All he kept asking me is if he was going to be traded, if he was going to be on the team. And I remember I just kept talking about things I thought that was important for your best player to do. I’m sure he was listening to me but he had one thing on his mind. That was he didn’t want to be traded and he wanted me to tell him that he was going to be there (in Philly), be back next year. We got that straightened out. I told him that (trading him) wasn’t our intention.

King: It was a pretty long meeting and it was intense, voices raised on both sides. It wasn’t just one person screaming at one person. … The meeting was more to air things out. Everybody got their feelings out and pretty much said, “Hey, we want to keep working together.”

After the emotional meeting earlier in the day, a press conference was called for that evening. Like the timeline and some of the details from the meeting, what Iverson did in the meantime is unclear. It has been speculated by more than a few that he had been drinking in the middle of the day, a claim that he has denied.

“You know, I believe there are things that I can control, things that I can get a grip on. But I mean, this what happen when you lose, you know? You go to the Finals and then the next year, you’re out in the first round. This what happen. You know. I get it, you know. Everybody takes shots at Allen Iverson. It’s just unfortunate that I can’t … I can’t punch back.”

Moore: I always thought it was funny because Brown would praise Iverson for assists. Like, he would pass the ball and they would score and (Brown) would always clap and try to encourage him. And then Iverson would make some incredible shot, get fouled and make the basket and you could tell what Brown was looking for. And he also spoke in code that was very easily deciphered, that like, “We didn’t share the ball tonight.” It was obvious. And Iverson clearly knew what it meant, too: Allen shot the ball too much and didn’t involve his teammates. It was like Pig Latin or something. It was like the worst hidden secret, what (Brown) said and what he meant.

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Hartman: You know, I think they liked each other, but they were mad as hell at each other, other times. … But they also understood that they were good for each other. And I think Larry respected Allen’s talent, for sure, but also had to reel him in. And Allen was reluctant to let Larry reel him in.

Fox: The thing about Larry was Larry is as old-school a coach as there was. He once ripped on Matt Geiger for not practicing because I think he said he had a hangnail, either that or he didn’t want to mess up his pedicure. Like it was something along those lines. So he was always having little quips about guys who wouldn’t practice. And Larry wanted to practice every day possible, for as long as possible, as hard as possible.

Larry Platt, author of “Only the Strong Survive: The Odyssey of Allen Iverson”: It was a dysfunctional relationship, a loving relationship, but also (one where) Allen was often the more adult-like. Brown, for all his genius, was full of resentments and this effort to control.

Fox: Larry had no tolerance for not practicing, so he and Allen butted heads about that stuff all the time. And Larry wasn’t shy about turning to a reporter after his media availability and ripping into Allen off the record just to let it be known how he felt. And Allen’s a very smart guy and he knew that. So it created this dynamic and it had been going on for a long time.

Platt: I wrote a piece for Philly Mag on Brown as a genius. That was the name of the piece, “The Genius.” Practices were closed then and he let me come to practice for a week. Steve Mix was the color guy on the broadcast. And he sat with me and was like actually dissecting what I was seeing. It was fascinating because Brown would stop practice and move Toni Kukoc six inches, and Mix explains that that six inches is the difference between an open shot and a blocked shot.

But what was fascinating was Iverson during these practices. There’s one moment where Brown is leading the team in push-ups. And Iverson is next to him but he’s not doing the push-ups. He’s just lying on the ground as if he were doing push-ups and grunting as if he’s doing push-ups. But purposefully, like just to make his guys laugh, because they know he’s sort of goofing on Brown.

Brown: I’m a coach. My thing is (when) I grew up, everybody comes to practice, you work hard, that’s where you get things accomplished. But at the end of the day, your admiration is when a guy goes out and lays it on the line every single day. Allen and I talk about this all the time. He made me a better person and a better coach. And you know, there are some ways I’ll look back and I needed to make some adjustments and realizing that, “Shoot, guys were playing the minutes he played and taking the pounding he took, that sometimes I should’ve been a little bit more sensitive probably to some of the veteran players.” At the end of the day, everywhere I’ve been, my guys have practiced. But he was a different bird. I coached him differently and I’m not ashamed of that.

“Anybody tell you that I missed practice. If a coach say I missed practice, and y’all hear it, then that’s that. I mean, I might’ve missed one practice this year, but if somebody say, ‘He doesn’t come to practice’ — it can be one practice out of all the practices this year — that’s enough. That’s enough to get a whole lot started. I mean it’s just … that’s enough.”

Brown: One of the first questions they asked him was, “Coach said that you needed to be more conscientious in terms of practice.” And he didn’t want to hear that. He wanted to hear that he wasn’t going anywhere. So I think that kind of ignited it.

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Hartman: I was in the office of Tom Stathakes, who at the time was overseeing our news operation at Comcast SportsNet. And Tom and I are sitting there (before the press conference) and this is how it all came up.

He goes, “Why don’t you ask that MF’er why he doesn’t ever practice?” And I looked at Tom and said, “It’s a legitimate question, I think it’s a great question. I agree with you. I’m going to ask it.”

Dei Lynam, Comcast SportsNet 76ers sideline reporter: He definitely was absent at times. … But it’s not like it didn’t go on before Al with other stars, and it still goes on today. But he was never a guy who had liked practice. It was a struggle. He didn’t really enjoy being there for practice, but he would always tell you, “I’ll be there for the game.”

Moore: I would say they definitely practiced more (than today). If there was a game on Wednesday and a game on Friday, they typically practiced (Thursday). Sports science was not as big of a deal. If it was around, it was kind of in its infant stages.

Lynam: They would actually look at film, scrimmage, do walkthrough stuff, scrimmage more and then maybe do some shooting drills. Now, it seems like that’s all they do when they get in the gym. They’re working one-on-one with some guy feeding them the ball. But no, these were real practices.

King: I think people kept digging in and making a point, and that’s what triggered Allen. Allen was like, “I’m here to talk about a great meeting with my coach and we’re coming back,” and everyone else wanted to talk about practice. And I think that’s what got him.

“We sitting in here, I supposed to be the franchise player, and we in here talking about practice. I mean listen, we talking about practice. Not a game, not a game, not a game, we talking about practice. Not a game, not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it’s my last. Not the game. We talking about practice, man. I mean, how silly is that?”

Moore: It was like uncharted waters. You really didn’t have any idea and then it’s like, “Well, where’s he going to go from here?”

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Fox: All of a sudden, it just kind of snapped. He gets on the rant of practice; it almost seemed by accident. And then the media starts kind of laughing because he kept going on and on. And that seemed to egg him on. Like, you could tell it was going off the rails.

Hartman: And then he asks the follow-up (to me). He goes, “You come to the arena, you see me play?” I said, “Absolutely.” And he says, “I give everything I got,” and he did. And I say, “Absolutely.” That guy, when he was on the court, he would give everything he had, no question. But to Larry Brown’s point, how am I going to improve this team if my best player isn’t giving his all when we’re all together trying to learn what we want to do in a game, practicing? And that’s what Larry was trying to get across to Allen, and there was a disconnect there.

King: For a reporter, it was what they would want, somebody to keep answering their questions about practice. And you see him get agitated, “Well, I’m going to keep going, because we got him.”

“How the hell can I make my teammates better by practicing? I make them … They supposed to be used to playing with me anyway.”

Hartman: Ashley asked a great question about improving your teammates by practicing. “How the hell can I make my teammates better by practicing?” It’s one of the great lines of all time. It’s the perfect comment used by Allen in that press conference because you really see, clear as day, that he doesn’t get it. We’re like, “What?” It’s just a great line. I love it. 

Fox: My question was really kind of a lifeline and then he bit my head off, which I didn’t appreciate (laughing).

King: In Allen’s mind, it was, “I play, 42, 43 minutes hurt and everything, and all everybody wants to talk about is practice.” I think that’s what, in his mind, he couldn’t understand. “Like OK, I give everything I have on the floor but all you guys care about is if I practice. If I practice and don’t give everything on the floor, is that OK?” If he’d have practiced three hours a day and then dogged it on the court, would everybody have been better off if he did that?

Brown: He was a leader on the court every game. Nobody ever questioned Allen for trying to win a game and the admiration the coaches had for him in terms of how hard he played, how competitive he was, how tough he was. … He wanted to play 48 minutes a game. I always laugh now and I tease him when you hear these guys sitting out games to rest players. If I had ever tried that with Allen, I mean, I don’t know what would’ve happened.

Platt: He exhibited this blind spot about, “How am I going to make my teammates better by practicing with them?” Well, because like, Larry Hughes having to check you is going to make him better. But Eric Snow just had a series where he maybe shot 30 percent from the floor. (Note: It was 32 percent.) And I’m sitting there as a fan thinking, “Why the fuck are we talking about practice when Eric Snow can’t hit an open 5-footer?” Like, that’s what we should be talking about.

At around this point, after Iverson gets in a back-and-forth with a reporter, Frascona calls to Phil Jasner, veteran beat writer for the Daily News, “C’mon, Phil.” A few minutes later, after Iverson gets in another back-and-forth with Barkann, Frascona tries to stop it. Iverson looks at her and says, “I ain’t going nowhere. I’m not going nowhere. I’m not going nowhere. He can talk, let him talk. Let him talk. You can talk. You can talk. ”

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Frascona and King, who was on crutches, were standing to the side of the podium with Rose. 

Platt: I remember I was standing there on the side of the stage. Right across Allen on the other side of the stage was Billy King and Karen Frascona. And at first, we were all laughing because it was funny. And then as it went on and on, this is almost the only thing I remember (from the presser), you saw Billy’s smile shrink and shrink and dissipate. And you just see him almost in real time realizing, “Oh shit, this is going to be a problem.”

Fox: You just didn’t see that a lot because usually when Karen would say, “OK, last question,” a player would be like, “Right on, this is almost over.” And Allen at that point was like, “No, no, no, I’m going to sit here and talk.”

King: By that point, I think local TV was going live, and rather than try to go up there and drag him off. I was on crutches. I had ruptured my Achilles. I had surgery for that right at the end of the playoffs against Boston. It was a situation that I didn’t want to make worse.

Coskey: Literally, what had happened is I had gotten home, put my phone on the counter and I was in, getting dressed for this dinner. And when I came out, my phone had like, 30 missed calls from Ed Snider. And that’s when I turned the TV on and SportsNet was carrying live at that time.

Basically, the message on my phone is, “Are you watching this?”

Stathakes: The funny thing about that is that somebody had said, “He’s going to drop the f-bomb,” and we were like, “OK, we’re on cable, and if he drops it, he drops it.”

Coskey: I’m getting dressed in my bedroom with it on the TV and I’m just like, “Holy shit.” I can’t really say that anything was ever really surprising, but yeah, that was a bit surprising.

“I’m upset for one reason, man, because I’m in here. I lost. I lost my best friend. I lost him and I lost this year. Everything is going downhill for me, far as just that, you know? As far as my life. And then I’m dealing with this right here.”

Iverson’s longtime close friend Rahsaan Langford was shot and killed in their native state of Virginia in October 2001.

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Platt: When he was saying, “We’re talking about practice,” he was basically saying, “I got all this other shit that’s gone on in my life.” And he really was, I think, focused on that tragedy. He’s such an emotional, artistic guy that that clouded that whole season.

King: It had an emotional impact on him (during the season).

Andy Jasner, journalist and son of Phil Jasner: I don’t think it had much to do with what Larry Brown said about practice. I think No. 1, his friend getting killed was just eating him alive; he didn’t want to be there.

Brown: The one thing about Allen that never changed and which, you know, there’s so many things that you can admire about him, but his loyalty to the guys he grew up with was second to none.

Platt: (Langford) just exuded like good soul, none of the sort of swagger that those other guys had, putting on that tough act. I didn’t know him well, but I talked to him at games well enough to say hello and just bullshit, and I was really impressed. And I always thought that about Allen, he wasn’t this hard guy. In fact, he was protected by hard guys so that he didn’t become a hard guy growing up. So I always felt (Langford) was the most kindred spirit to Allen.

King: I think most players look at the basketball court or the football field as where they can get away from everything. I think if you talk to a lot of the great athletes, the court or the field is where they can get away.

Platt: I just remember him being pretty emotional and raw about the stuff going on in his life, especially about Rah. That had clearly influenced what he brought to basketball that whole season.

“I can’t win ’em all. I’m human. I’m just like y’all, man, I’m just like you. I’m just like you. You might be a little better than me in your eyes or the people that love you, in their eyes, you might be a little better than me. But you human, you just like me, right? You just like me, you ain’t no different. You just like me. You bleed just like I bleed, you cry just like I cry, you hurt just like I hurt. I ain’t no different than you. I ain’t no different. But I’m Allen Iverson, I’m a basketball player, you know, I get some money to play basketball.”

Michael Barkann: That’s why you’re different, right? That’s why you’re different, right? 

“I ain’t different than you, I’m not different than you. You get paid to get on that mic and talk shit, don’t you? Don’t you get paid?”

Stathakes: People have to remember that (Comcast SportsNet’s) offices were in the (arena). So it’s a 45-second walk to go down there. You could tell almost right away how this was going.

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King: Everybody just kept going on. They’re two good friends of mine, but Neil Hartman and Michael Barkann came down and they just kept going back and forth about the practice.

Stathakes: Barkann was on TV, and if you know Michael — Neil was down there because Neil wasn’t (in the studio for) “Daily News Live” — and I know Michael was jonesing to go down there. … Michael saw a house fire and Michael wanted to be out front. It’s an easy walk.

“What I got to do? I’mma come in here, I’mma be the biggest, baddest, strongest bodybuilder in the world. And that’s going to make me the best player in the world! That’s gonna make me … If I can do that, if I build myself up and get a whole lot of muscles and come back in here looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger, are y’all gon’ give me the MVP award automatically? Will you … please do that. If I come in here and look swole and big and strong and tough, y’all gon’ give me that award, right?”

Lynam: Did he ever really go to the weight room? I mean, I don’t think so. I don’t think I ever saw him there.

Jasner: We’re not talking about weight gain or muscle, but just building your body to (a certain) point, because an 82-game season followed by playoffs takes its toll.

Fox: He was infamous for not lifting a weight. And he even said it in that answer. He’s like, “I won the MVP bony as hell.” And he was (at 6 feet and 165 pounds)! But that was also part of his thing. Here’s this little guy who plays fearlessly and drives to the basket and gets clobbered, makes the shot, steps back up and knocks down the free throw. So it was almost like a badge of honor to be like that. He didn’t believe in lifting weights or riding the bike after the game.

Lynam: You know the food that he loved to eat? Taco Bell. There was a reason we took him there when they would do the “Fan Day” (events), where they would stick players in different parts of the city.

Platt: There’s also a moment where he disappears from practice because his guy Gary Moore had Taco Bell outside in the little hallway, which was at St. Joe’s (where the Sixers practiced). Allen goes out, downs a few burritos and then comes running back in and rejoins the scrimmage.

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Hartman: For certain superstars, they’re so darn good they don’t have to do (certain workouts). But you’re asking the question, “If you did do that and worked hard during the offseason, how much better could you be?”

“What you know about basketball? Have you ever played? … I don’t know Phil Jasner. I don’t know you as a basketball player. For real. I know you as a columnist. Listen, I don’t know you as no player, though. … I don’t, I don’t, I ain’t never heard of you as no player. Why is that an issue? Because we talking about basketball!” 

Phil Jasner: Let me ask my question.

“What. What’s your question … Phillip?”

Andy Jasner: (Phil) would be on the phone for hours with Billy and Pat (Croce) and Larry Brown off the record, saying, “What is going on here? Seriously?” The common three words that I heard were, “He did what?” You would hear that all the time. It was almost exhausting at times to cover him because of that, because you never knew where the day was going to go.

Coskey: I used to always cringe at 10 o’clock when my phone would ring on a Sunday night. This is before the days of caller ID. And I knew it was Phil Jasner and what does Phil know right now that I didn’t know? That I was going to have to catch up on?

Moore: Phil would ask the questions that needed to be asked and sometimes they weren’t questions that Allen or other players would rather hear.

Fox: I hated how he talked to Phil.

Jasner: When I talked to Allen for my book on my dad, he said, “Andy, that was all my fault. I mean, I was just so upset about my friend, and once I got going, I couldn’t stop myself. But at the time, I was just so tired of being criticized by everybody.”

Hartman: Phil Jasner was as respected as any reporter you know in the NBA. And Allen did respect Phil Jasner for sure. But at the time, he’s getting so agitated, he just said whatever the hell was on his mind.

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Jasner: Everybody called him Phillip. Writers, coaches, players. Kobe (Bryant) especially. Kobe would kill him: “Phillip, get out of my face. You got to ask a better question than that.” Everywhere he went, he heard it. … Kobe was relentless, it was hysterical. “Where’s my pretzel, Phillip?”

Moore: Just the way he said it (laughing). It was “Phillip.” Like, it was so exaggerated — the way it was a different tone and like, I want to say, condescension.

Jasner: When (Allen) came back with Denver (in March 2008), and I was there that night, it was one of the craziest regular-season games that I’ve covered with the Sixers. And Allen sought him out before they started their press conference, they sought each other out. It had to be a five- to 10-second hug. Before anything started, he’s like, “Where’s Phil?” Even then, all of that was in the past.

It just became one of those things where (their relationship) just morphed into something special. That’s something I think Dad never expected. He never came out and told me that, but there’s no way he could’ve ever expected from where they started, to become the type of friends that they were. I mean, it’s just no way.

“But believe me, it’s not about just Allen Iverson. It’s not. I’mma go to war for Philadelphia, man. Every time you throw that ball up, I’mma go to war. I’mma fight. I’mma do some shit that’s wrong and I’mma do some shit that’s right. And I ain’t gonna do it all right all the time.”

Fox: He talked about his 7-year-old daughter, who (he claims) was having to field questions from teachers about whether he was going to be traded. Allen didn’t want to leave, he really didn’t. He loved it here.

King: The trade with Allen that we almost made was before 2001, before the run to the Finals. After that, we weren’t thinking that. It wasn’t even a thought process.

Brown: I really believe more than anything, his whole thing was, “I want to stay in Philly, coach.”

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Stathakes: I don’t know if there’s anybody right now, sort of (this) off-the-cuff guy from the neighborhood. Like, he was Philadelphia personified, and when he talked, he wasn’t worried what anybody thought about it. And never did, he never cared.

Moore: I just remember walking out (of the press conference). You’re almost in a stupor, like you’re trying to figure out what just happened and what to do about it. I knew it was, like, different but I didn’t know it was going to become some legendary event.

Jasner: My phone rang. And it was my dad and he was like, “I got to talk to you.” He called me from the parking lot and was like, “Did you see that?” And I was like, “Yeah, I saw bits and pieces and it sounded a little crazy.”

He’s like, “I’m not really sure what just happened there. What the heck do I do? How do I write this?”

Fox: I got up to leave because I was mad and I didn’t want to talk about it. And I was on deadline. And so I left the building up through the employee entrance, climbed up the stairs and walked out. It opens up onto that breezeway that connects one parking lot to another. And I was just walking to my car and here comes Allen and some of his friends, and they’re scaling a fence from down where the players usually park. And they had parked up on the surface lot where I had parked. So I wasn’t chasing him out of the building — it was purely by accident. And he jumps over the fence right in front of me. I look at him, I’m like, “What was that?” And he said, “That there wasn’t nothing but a thing” and “Have a nice summer.”

Hartman: I saw Allen in 2016, I was at the Final Four when Villanova played in Houston. I was there (at the Hall of Fame class introduction in Houston). And there was about, I’m going to say 10 to 12 guys around a table.

I go, “Allen, did you know who asked you that question?” He said, “I did not.” I said, “I did.” And he looked at me and he goes, “And I liked you!’” Everybody thought it was Phil Jasner who asked the question, and so I had my little exchange with Allen and he said that a day doesn’t go by when he and his kids don’t hear about practice and all that. He was the charming Allen that day and it was obviously a big day in his life.

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Brown: I watch (the interview) on the anniversary every (year) because that’s a big deal. And when Allen comes to talk to a team, everybody will ask him about it. There’s so many amazing things about him that I admire, but he’s so brutally honest with all our kids. Whenever I ask him to speak with players or something like that, he tells them the good things that he did, he tells them the things that he could’ve done differently. He doesn’t apologize. He’s so real and honest with them, it’s what makes it so unbelievable.

Fox: I’ve had the pleasure of seeing lots of compelling stuff, having worked in Philly for over 12 years. (Terrell Owens) lifting weights in his driveway and Drew Rosenhaus screaming “Next question” in T.O.’s house.

King: Back then, there wasn’t Twitter, there wasn’t the social media like there is today. So local TV may run (Allen’s press conference) again or somebody may write a newspaper article, but if it would’ve happened today — I mean, people talk about it now, but if that would’ve happened in this era, it would’ve been even bigger. I think it continues to have a life of its own because of social media now. But if the social media that we have today was in place then, the memes and everything, it would’ve been off the charts.

Fox: We’ve had some moments here. But that one, I mean that’s the greatest press conference ever in my mind.

(Top photo: Tom Mihalek / AFP via Getty Images)