Allen Iverson turns 50 next year. He has not given the milestone much thought. “That’s next year,” he said as he strode through the 76ers’ practice facility Friday afternoon, not long after the franchise had unveiled a statue to honor him. It is a milestone for him. He has gone through enough, put himself through enough, through every stage of his life, that someone might wonder whether he would reach that age. Iverson never did.

“I believe in God,” he said. “I put all my trust in God. There’s not one day that I don’t think I’m going to live forever — not one day. I don’t think about death or nothing.”

He left that to everyone else. Through the roughest of upbringings, through his MVP prime with the Sixers, in a post-playing life that at times teetered on the edge of financial and existential ruin, that was always an unspoken, underlying fear with Iverson: that it would all end quickly and tragically. So many familiar faces returned Friday for the statue ceremony, Larry Brown and Pat Croce and Billy King and so many of Iverson’s Sixers teammates and even Terrell Owens. And the warm memories of what Iverson accomplished here and how he did it — always the smallest, toughest dude on the court — were cut with a sense of pride and relief that maybe, just maybe, he had finally made it through the last of his dark tunnels.

From 2002, when he was charged with criminal trespassing and brandishing an unlicensed gun, through his struggles with alcohol and his stormy marriage to his former wife, Tawanna, to the reports that he blew through $200 million, Iverson forever seemed one false move from total disaster. King admitted Friday that yes, there were times that he doubted Iverson would live this long. But then the two of them were together in January, and Iverson spent a half-hour talking to King’s daughter Emery, who is 7, telling her that she could grow up to be anything she wanted to be. The words sounded so familiar to King … because he had heard people say the same thing to Iverson.

“Worried — I just worried about his lifestyle,” King said. “But as I’ve seen him, the appreciation for everything he’s gone through in life, and to see him talk to my daughter and the passion that he showed, I don’t worry anymore. It’s a natural progression that I don’t know that I thought was going to happen, but it did.”

That’s the thing about Iverson: Everyone has always wanted the best for him. Everyone saw the person and player he was and could yet be without his tendency toward self-destructive behavior. The skill and passion on the court, the intelligence and willingness to be vulnerable in public, the status as a cultural and countercultural icon for his tattoos and cornrows and defiance, the smile that could stop a cloister of nuns — there was so much to him, so much that drew people in, so much sensitivity and potential buried within that hard and jagged exterior if someone, anyone, could reach him once and for all. And there was always hope that someone would.