New York, New York, June 23, 2025 --13a, an imprint of Gallery Books, will publish MISUNDERSTOOD, the memoir from NBA legend Allen Iverson, on October 7, 2025, it was announced today by Charles Suitt, Publisher of 13a.

Few NBA players reach the elite performance level of Allen Iverson, considered one of the sport's all-time best players. In MISUNDERSTOOD, Iverson recounts with searing clarity and touching candor his rise from impoverished child in the Virginia projects to high school basketball champion, to being named NBA Rookie of the Year in 1996 (among a class that included Kobe Bryant, Ray Allen, and Steve Nash), to NBA All-Star and Reebok's Vice President of Basketball. Part Hall of Fame athlete, part fashion icon, part hip-hop muse, Iverson was one of the first celebrities to fuse lifestyle, culture, and sports.

But despite decades in the limelight, Allen Iverson has rarely spoken publicly about the details of his private life. In MISUNDERSTOOD, he reveals for the first time his incredible journey from an ultra-talented misfit to an NBA superstar to cultural tastemaker. But Iverson’s professed foremost goal, more than fame or fortune, was always to lift his family and friends out of poverty and violence.

On publishing Iverson's memoir, Charles Suitt commented: “Before TikTok or Instagram, Allen Iverson regularly went viral by completely shattering the mold dictating what an NBA player could be. His speed, versatility, and tenacity made him one of the NBA's all-time best ballhandlers, all the while dealing with legal troubles and personal traumas that only contributed to his sense of individualism and star power.”

Vice President, Editorial Director Aimee Bell is editing the book. World rights were acquired in a deal brokered by Ian Kleinert, now at Paradigm. Simon & Schuster Audio will simultaneously publish the audio edition.

About Allen Iverson
Allen Iverson played for fourteen seasons in the NBA, during which he was Rookie of the Year, MVP, and eleven-time All Star. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016. In 2021, Iverson was selected to be part of the “NBA 75,” a group of the seventy-five most important players in the league’s first seventy-five years, thus cementing his status as one of the sport's best players. Know equally for his aggressive, fast play style and groundbreaking integration of fashion and self-expression into sports, Iverson helped to usher in the age of hyper-individualistic sports personalities and shaped American culture in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Iverson has had a career-long partnership with Reebok, for whom he now serves as Vice President of Basketball.

13a, an imprint of Gallery Books, is a home for authors who have achieved success in multiple arenas, often preceded by a journey on the road less traveled. The list is populated by books with stories that matter, that are meant to inspire, and encourage readers to aspire to follow their dreams.

GALLERY BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, is an imprint dedicated to publishing a variety of must-read books on a wide array of topics. Launched in 2010, Gallery is designed to showcase established voices and introduce emerging new ones—in both fiction and nonfiction. Gallery Books is the publisher of The Woman in Me by Britney Spears, Taste, by Stanley Tucci, Straight Shooter by Stephen A. Smith, The Right Call by Sally Jenkins, Making It So by Patrick Stewart, My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy by Clint Hill, The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren, The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer and Anna: The Biography by Amy Odell, among others.

SIMON & SCHUSTER is a global leader in general interest publishing, dedicated to providing the best in fiction and nonfiction for readers of all ages, and in all printed, digital and audio formats. Its distinguished roster of authors includes many of the world’s most popular and widely recognized writers, and winners of the most prestigious literary honors and awards. It is home to numerous well-known imprints and divisions such as Simon & Schuster, Scribner, Atria Books, Gallery Books, Adams Media, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing and Simon & Schuster Audio and international companies in Australia, Canada, India and the United Kingdom, and proudly brings the works of its authors to readers in more than 200 countries and territories. For more information visit our website at www.simonandschuster.com.

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