Allen Iverson’s statue was unveiled Friday afternoon, and right away there were those on the interwebs who decreed that the thing was not nearly grand enough, that it hardly does him justice.

The truth is, it is of the same scale as the other nine statues on the Sixers’ Legends Walk, which lies in front of the team’s practice facility in Camden, N.J. And the greater truth is, there has always been more to Iverson than meets the eye.

So it is with his statue, which depicts him in mid-crossover. During the unveiling one guy in the crowd of well-wishers loudly prattled on about Iverson executing that move as a rookie back in March 1997, against no less a player than Michael Jordan. How that turn of events led to the move being outlawed, even though it wasn’t. How that wouldn’t have been the case if AI crossed over, say, Charles Barkley.

That’s just it – you see what you want to see with Iverson. You see the crossover and the stepover, but also the missteps. You see the heart and the toughness, but also the warts. It was all out there, plain as day, every day.

His legend could not be compressed into a single statue, no matter the size, no matter the shape. It is what made him such a compelling figure, and often such a maddening one.

You wanna talk about the crossover? Great moment, but it came amid a loss to Jordan’s Bulls, in a season that saw Chicago win the fifth of its six championships, and the Sixers go 22-60. You wanna talk about the stepover against the Lakers’ Tyronn Lue? Fine. But it came in the Sixers’ lone victory in the 2001 Finals, which represents the high-water mark of the Iverson Era (and indeed the franchise’s high-water mark since the ‘83 team rampaged to a title).

Like the city he represented, Iverson was complicated and flawed. He was frustrating and fascinating. He moved the needle, and moved people.

Who among us would wear his heart as readily on his sleeve as he did? Who among us would so readily put everything – the good, the bad and the ugly – out there for all to see?

So yeah, the statue might be too small, but how could you ever adequately depict all that Allen Iverson represented? How could you replicate the outsized presence of a man who while small in stature – 6 foot (perhaps), 165 in his prime – excelled among giants?

True to form, Iverson was moved to tears at one point during Friday’s proceedings. And certainly he saw that there was more to the statue than that which had been crafted by sculptor Chad Fisher – that it represented a career chiseled as much by others as himself.

“So many people helped me get where I’m at in life,” Iverson told the crowd that had gathered within the practice facility, immediately before the unveiling.

He mentioned his three biggest coaching influences – Mike Bailey at Bethel High School in Hampton, Va., the late John Thompson at Georgetown and Larry Brown with the Sixers. And all around him, throughout the proceedings, were family members, former teammates and one-time club officials, like Brown, Pat Croce and Billy King.

The guy who manned the backcourt alongside him during the run to the ‘01 Finals, Eric Snow, also addressed those who had assembled. Aaron McKie and Theo Ratliff were there. So too were Larry Hughes and Doug Overton, Marc Jackson and Jumaine Jones, etc. Even Matt Geiger was on hand. He was the journeyman center whose refusal to waive his $5 million trade kicker scuttled a 2000 deal that would have sent him and Iverson to Detroit.

That came months before the Finals run, and months after Croce, the team president at the time, brokered an uneasy truce between Iverson and Brown, when repeated clashes had pushed them to the breaking point. Iverson insisted Friday that while he and his former coach “didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things,” they ultimately “wanted the same things.” Which was probably true. They were attacking matters from entirely different angles, to the point that Iverson bristled every time – every blessed time – Brown rested him during a game. Called him a certain name that begins with “mother,” in point of fact.

Then, of course, there were their respective views on practice, which resulted in Iverson’s memorable rant on the topic during a news conference after the ‘01-02 season. That has since taken on a life of its own, to the point that it was even referenced on the TV show “Ted Lasso.”

It came up again Friday, and Iverson said that while he has few regrets in life, he believes he could have handled things better when he was asked about practice, all those years ago.

“I wish I could have explained: ‘How can you become an MVP, how can you become an All-Star, how can you become a Hall of Famer and do all the great things I accomplished if I didn’t practice?’” he said. “How do you think I got that good? I had to practice.”

He believes he got “a bad rap,” that “one interview turned into something legendary.” And that is inarguable.

“It’s funny,” he said. “I’ll be walking in the street and people will be coming up to me, saying, ‘Practice? You talkin’ about practice?’ And I’ll be like, ‘Man, out of all the things I accomplished in my career, that’s the only thing you can come up with?’ Crazy.”

He was laughing at that point, but he would later admit that nothing got his motor revving quite like game night – that he could be walking around his house “like Fred Sanford” hours before tip, looking like there was no way he could play, only to get it together in time to take the floor.

“The game is just so fun,” he said. “It’s the same feeling like it was when I was a kid.”

And indeed, every speaker Friday referenced Iverson’s hell-bent playing style. That includes Sixers managing partners Josh Harris and David Blitzer. Also current coach Nick Nurse, who said AI would always go hard to the rim before “taking a shot (from an opponent) and going down and picking yourself up. And doing it night after night after night.”

(Which leads one to wonder if the most appropriate sculpture of Iverson wouldn’t have depicted him splattered on the apron of the court, arms and legs splayed every which way. Because it seems like he found himself in that position a half-dozen times a game. And that he always rose to fight again.)

Mark Hendrickson, who like Iverson was a Sixers rookie in 1996-97, told me recently that AI was “pound for pound, probably one of the toughest guys I’ve seen.”

Hendrickson, a willowy 6-9 forward, spent just that single season in Philadelphia, and lasted four years in the NBA in all before spending a decade as a major league pitcher. But it’s clear his former teammate left an indelible impression on him.

“The game was more physical back then,” he said. “The rules were a little bit different, and the beating that he took …”

His voice trailed off.

“He was fearless,” Hendrickson said. “He went in against the trees. You will never question that he did not bring his ‘A’ effort every night.”

Iverson’s indomitable spirit was evident in other ways, too. Todd MacCulloch, a backup center for the Sixers in the early 2000s, once recalled Iverson showing up for shootaround and saying, “I feel pretty good, Todd. Think I’m gonna go for 48 tonight.”

MacCulloch, a quick-witted sort, didn’t skip a beat.

“Think I’m gonna go from four to eight tonight,” he told Iverson.

That was then, this is now. Now Iverson talks about being a presence for the three youngest of his five kids, since that wasn’t the case when his two oldest were growing up. As he put it, he was always “ripping and running.”

And now he talks about wanting to serve as mentor to the younger Sixers.

“I can slick-talk and get my point across,” he said. “I don’t have to give nobody a long sermon about what they have to do out there.”

He even talked about a movie being done about his life. Better be a double feature, because there’s a lot of ground to cover. And if there are those who believe his statue failed to do that, so be it. Because really, what could?