We shred Howard Eskin a lot around here. Rightfully so. His antiquated hot takes don’t work in the current media environment, and his constant negativity toward things most people find fun is alarming at best. However, there are a few areas in which he excels, and most of them have to do with getting inside dirt on unspoken bits surrounding the Philly sports landscape.

If nothing else, Eskin is a hard-worker. He’s everywhere. He literally exists in the bowels of Philly sports. I once stumbled upon him sitting on a trash can and chatting up a random security guard underneath CBP before a media softball game a few years ago. I’m sure local media folks have had countless similar encounters. The point is, working the halls and underbelly of Philly sports does get him good dirt.

He had two mounds of fresh top soil today.

Here’s what he told Angelo Cataldi and the WIP morning team about Allen Iverson’s absence at the Big 3 game Sunday night:

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“He was telling people his doctor advised him… he told me he hasn’t seen a doctor for 20 years. And then Julius tells me he was in the hospital overnight, I said come on, Doc, he wasn’t in the hospital overnight– he was doing something but it wasn’t in the hospital overnight.”

“I don’t want to say, he was partying. I’m sure he was partying… but that’s what he does.”

“I think he’s so out of shape that he’s embarrassed.”

Man, this feels like 2003 again with Eskin bashing AI for partying. It’s hard to tell how much of that is speculation and how much is something Eskin actually knows (for what it’s worth, there are no pictures or video of AI out partying Saturday night that I could find), but it’s interesting nonetheless.

More newsworthy, here’s Eskin on the Sixers lying about having sold 14,000 season tickets:

“They have not sold 14,000 tickets, that’s such a false… not even close. Let’s put it this way, I’ve talked to people who used to be involved with the team– there’s not a chance, even when you account 10-game plans, even with that it’s not 14,000. They’re creating this illusion that they don’t have tickets left. So after they find out what the market – and they will find out what the market is on their tickets with StubHub – after they find out what the market is, they’re gonna come back and then they’re gonna obviously raise the prices on whatever those tickets were to meet the market. So it’ll be different than the previous price, but all of a sudden they’ll have season tickets.”

I don’t know if speaking to someone who used to be involved with the team allows you to speak with authority on the current team, especially given the fact that interest is unprecedented, at least since the Allen Iverson era. But none of this would surprise me. As we’ve detailed, the Sixers have already raised prices multiple this THIS OFFSEASON, and if they are indeed holding back tickets to gauge market demand, after charging for a waitlist, then that would be just about the crummiest thing they can do. I’ll have more on this later.