Reddit mentions of Young, Black, Rich and Famous: The Rise of the NBA, The Hip Hop Invasion and the Transformation of American Culture

I think this is a tad hyperbolic. Around the time Iverson was getting big I was playing Basketball in High School as well as just being a huge fan of the game itself, I also listened to some Hip-Hop (for me it was mainly just stuff like Jedi Mind Tricks) and Punk and I definitely cannot relate to any "struggle" you speak of, i.e. "struggle with our parents, a struggle for understanding and acceptance." But, to each their own. Iverson wasn't really breaking any new ground by the time he was in the NBA. The whole rebel against so called "white corporate America" and interjecting hip-hop style, etc. had already been going on years before in the early 90's with the Fab 5, and around the same time, from the late 80's through mid-90's you had Arsenio Hall constantly bringing NBA players and Hip-Hop artists on to his show together, there were a few movies that were explicitly showing this pairing, "Above The Rim" with Tupac and some of Spike Lee's earlier documentary stuff, and long before all of this there was "The Bad Boys" of the Detroit Pistons. The aesthetics and the so called "attitude", the public coupling of the culture and the game had already been set in motion long before AI stepped into the league. He definitely added his own flair to it, and he may have breathed new life into it, but he certainly wasn't the architect that so many people seem to give him credit for.

For anyone interested in this, you should check out Todd Boyd's book "Young, Black, Rich and Famous: The Rise of the NBA, The Hip Hop Invasion and the Transformation of American Culture". It's an ugly book but it is pretty much the only book to explain this connection between the NBA and different youth cultures throughout the years especially focusing on Hip-Hop.