Steve Francis on his basketball journey
And it was almost Georgetown. But I’ll never forget the conversation I had with John Thompson. He said, “Steve, we like you. We do. But I just had Allen Iverson. I can’t have you right after Allen. I just can’t have it, Steve. I’ll have a heart attack.”
I respected it. He was right. He saw all those hangers-on who were around Allen all the time at Georgetown, and he knew they’d just be waiting for me to come through. So my junior year, when I was already 21 years old, I transferred to Maryland.
It comes from my personal connection, but this part of this excellent Steve Francis article really jumped out at me. Part of it is the way John Thompson, Jr. framed the situation as being draining for himself as the coach, and not as a fraught situation for Steve Francis. The NCAA dynamic seems at play there. The rest of the article is excellent, and, as it will do for many, revealed a lot about a player I’ve always known about but never really knew about.