By Curtis Harris
The 2016 NBA All-Star Game will be the first held outside the United
States. But until Pau Gasol was named as the replacement for injured
Bulls teammate Jimmy Butler, it nearly held an even more interesting
first distinction: the first NBA All-Star Game with no white players.
Even as the NBA is predominantly black, there has always been at
least one white All-Star. European influence in recent years has helped,
be it Gasol, his brother Marc or Dirk Nowitzki. Like Pau Gasol this
year, these players deserved to be in the game. But they also make for a
dramatic contrast from the NBA's very first All-Star showcase, held in
Bostin in March 1951.
The league itself was nearly all white in its second season, with
four black players rostered that season: Boston’s Chuck Cooper, New
York’s Nathaniel “Sweetwater” Clifton, Tri-Cities’ Hank DeZoine and
Washington’s Earl Lloyd. Those four men broke the NBA’s color barrier
that season, but it was up to another player, who arrived the following
season, to ultimately break the All-Star color line.
In October 1951, 28-year-old Don Barksdale joined the Baltimore
Bullets. Raised in California, Barksdale was a fantastic athlete and
basketball star on the West Coast from his collegiate days at UCLA —
before John Wooden arrived — and his sterling play for the AAU’s Oakland
Bittners.
Click here for the full article.
Source: Sporting News
No comments:
Post a Comment