NBA legend Allen Iverson leaves trail of 'extremely sad' Australian fans behind as tour turns into fiasco

NBA legend Allen Iverson has been slammed for an Australian tour that descended into farce, leaving kids who waited hours to meet him "extremely sad" due to his unpleasant behaviour at meet and greets.

The 50-year-old kicked off his world-first 'The Allen Iverson Experience' tour earlier this month, with hundreds of fans flooding the venues he was booked by.

Some paid up to $700 to meet Iverson at the events, but many of those fans left the venue feeling disappointed and angry.

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One particularly fan took to Reddit to detail his experience with Iverson at an event in Melbourne, where he was going to meet 12 children who were battling cancer.

A family that attended the event drove over six and a half hours to meet Iverson, only to have their children left "extremely sad" by the day's end.

"My little brother who is 12 years old and is currently receiving chemotherapy for ALCL lymphoma, was so excited to meet one of his idols," the post on Reddit began.

"We were all told we would get to sit with him from 10.45 - 11.30 am and that did not happen. He was in the podcast room until about 12.30pm and did not come out and apologise. Instead his security did.

"We were waiting in a downstairs room with his security with all of the kids and his security told us he was 'having a bad day' and didn't want to come out.

"Shortly after, we were told to go upstairs to meet him and we did not get to meet him."

The user went on to note that eventually Iverson's security team did take the children up to a room to meet the NBA star, although he was doing an new interview at the time.

The parents were then refused entry into that room, "which quite frankly is weird", the user wrote.

"We went into the day being told we were going to get balls and jerseys, anything we wanted signed and to think of questions we wanted to ask him," the post continued.

"That did not happen. After we waited hours, his security firmly told us he is not signing anything at all and we did not get to talk to him at all, he did not say a word to anyone.

"We were lined up and all the kids got was a photo - he did not seem impressed about that. He had his hands in his pockets and did not smile in any photos.

"He knew the kids were sick and still did not put any effort or acknowledgement to that. He seemed to think he was better than everyone else, and it was obvious he did not want to have anything to do with a group of sick kids ... he needs to do better."

Australian great Andrew Bogut took to X to seek help finding the families at that event.

"Absolute shit human," Bogut said in the post.

"(The player) did a tour of Australia and treated people poorly, didn't fulfill appointments and obligations. No excuses for this.

"If anyone knows this family please reach out."

NBL legend Jason Cadee questioned why Iverson would come to Australia if he was not interested in attending events or interacting with fans.

"By the time I landed (at the NBL's HoopsFest event), I had already heard how difficult he was being and how much of a shit show it was," Cadee said on the Cut to the Chase podcast.

"Late to stuff, barely spoke, first interview they asked him how Australia was or something and he just laughed and said 'I haven't left my room'.

"Just things where I'm like 'why would you come' if you're going to be like this."

Like many fans, Cadee, too, was left behind by Iverson at a private event, which was attended by NBL owners, partners and CEOs.

"Those who know me know I'm not a big go and annoy people for a photo ... but in my head I actually said to myself, I'm going to get a photo with AI because there's not that many people (at this function) here so it won't be too annoying," he continued.

"Iverson comes across and he speaks. He walks in the room and he speaks, he spoke pretty well for about seven minutes or eight minutes, gives the mic up and just leaves, that's it.

I think he showed up to the Perth game that night for about 10 minutes and that was the last I saw of him for the weekend.

"But then I remember speaking to a few players, and I won't mention who it was but one of the imports, he was sitting there and he'd kind of heard that already and he goes 'man, I'm just disappointed... he's a guy that we've all grown up loving and to hear that he's just got no time for anyone... I just feel disappointed, like I've been let down'."

One user responded to Bogut's tweet and revealed they had paid $700 to meet their "childhood idol" only for him to show up 30 minutes late to the event in Perth.

"I got two seconds with him, a fist bump and my jersey signed very faint," the reply said.

"I'm a fool, I know. ... that's a lot of money for me in my situation.

"My childhood idol stole from me."

Iverson has also failed to appear at two of his scheduled events with Culture Kings and Creative Cubes, despite fans paying large sums and waiting for three hours to meet him.

In some cases, fans have reportedly been informed Iverson was stuck in traffic before later being told that he would not be attending the ticketed event, as per posts online.

Others have claimed they received emails while in line that the event had been cancelled.

A series of NBL stars from the South East Melbourne Phoenix along with former Essendon star Dyson Heppell stepped in "without hesitation" to fulfil Iverson's commitments at the Creative Cubes event.

NBL great Chris Anstey was one of the many who brought their kids to that event.

"Lots of super disappointed, near on distraught kids after Allen Iverson simply chose not to show up," he said.

"Just really poor form. Great job to everyone who arranged what would have been a ripper event."

Iverson has yet to make a comment about his absence from various events.