Sounds like Iverson is on the same path as Employee #8:

And as the rest of us are forced to bear witness to a disintegration, the rapid decline of a career clearly lacking nurturing, the time has arrived for Iverson’s inner circle to stand up and be counted, to provide some semblance of tough love – by any means necessary.

Unless those people are willing to write his epitaph instead.

Just listening to Gary Moore, Iverson’s business manager and the person he trusts most, they may be doing so very soon.

Allen Iverson is in trouble, folks, deep trouble. The combination of alcohol and gambling – and a once-promising career in tatters because of the first two – won’t culminate in anything short of disaster if help does not arrive in short order.

If numerous NBA sources are telling the truth – and there’s no reason to believe they’d do otherwise in a situation of this magnitude – Iverson will either drink himself into oblivion or gamble his life away.

Moore, ever the protector, would never admit as much, of course. But that’s part of the problem, isn’t it?

Iverson’s wife, Tawanna, having hired some high-powered Atlanta attorney and filed for a divorce last week, does not help matters. Nor does it help that she’s already separated from her husband, with custody of their five kids and seeking both alimony and child support.

When you consider Iverson’s well-known penchant for alcohol and his banishment from casinos in Detroit and Atlantic City, if disgust and sadness don’t come to mind, at least one question does:

Where is Pat Croce when you need him? Or Iverson’s coach at Georgetown, John Thompson?

via Stephen A. Smith: Iverson needs more than a prayer | Philadelphia Inquirer | 03/07/2010.

I don’t think its fair to ask “Where is…John Thompson?”. Thompson’s player graduation rates were higher than average for NCAA Men’s College Basketball. Iverson was an exception and he may be a very awful exception to Thompson’s excellent record as a coach who built excellent basketball teams and built a program where most players ended up with a degree from Georgetown.

I do think its fair to wonder about his posse who is famous in Philly for being always present when Iverson wants to hang out and never present when a tab is due.

In the end, like Antoine Walker, its Iverson’s responsibility. For the sake of his family and kids, if not himself, i hope he can level out his life out before he spirals further into the depths of these addictions.