INGLEWOOD, Calif. – During a weekend highlighting the NBA’s best at the 75th NBA All-Star Game, another group of players were honored for their impact on basketball, the Black pioneers.
The families of Chuck Cooper, Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton and Earl Lloyd, the players who broke the NBA’s color barrier in 1950, were recognized during Sunday’s event at Intuit Dome. Magic Johnson joined the children of the players on the court to honor their father’s legacies.
Cooper became the first Black player drafted into the NBA on April 25, 1950, when he was selected by the Boston Celtics in the second round. Just over a week later, on May 3, Clifton signed his NBA contract, joining the New York Knicks after garnering attention from Knicks president Ned Irish as a member of the Harlem Globetrotters. Finally, on Oct. 31, Lloyd became the first Black player to play in an NBA game, suiting up for the Washington Capitols against the Rochester Royals.
The three men were also honored Feb. 1 in Boston in the first Pioneers Classic between the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks. Their families were present at the game, and their children stood at center court, at halftime and after the game, as they received applause from fans.
All the pioneers had illustrious careers that led to being inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Lloyd, who died at age 86 in 2015, played nine seasons in the NBA and won a championship with the Syracuse Nationals. He became the first Black assistant coach in the NBA when the Detroit Pistons hired him in 1968.
Clifton played eight years in the NBA and was named an All Star in the 1956-57 season after averaging 10.7 points, 7.8 rebounds and 2.3 assists a game. He also played baseball in the Minor League for 2 seasons where he accumulated 23 home runs. He died at the age of 67.
Cooper played for the Celtics, St. Louis Hawks and the Fort Wayne Pistons in his six years in the association. After his playing career, he was on the Pittsburgh school board and got appointed the director of parks and recreation for the city, becoming the first Black department head.He worked until he died at the age of 57 with liver cancer.
NBA All-Stars’ Pioneers
Black NBA All-Star participants were appreciative of the path the three men paved for them and spoke about the other pioneers in their life who helped them reach the positions they are in today.
“I was a big Julius Erving fan,” Miami Heat guard Norman Powell said. “I grew up wanting to do his one-hand cradle dunks. He was a big inspiration for me picking up a basketball.”
Powell was a first-time All-Star representing Jamaica on Team World. He said he his mother inspired his family-oriented foundation but that players such as Clifton and Erving helped him realize his dream could become reality.
Alongside Powell was fellow 3-point competitor Bobby Portis, a forward from the Milwaukee Bucks. Portis `played Lloyd in “Sweetwater,” the move based on Clifton’s life. Portis said he loves what Clifton did for the game and praised his personal pioneers.
“I looked up to Corliss Williamson as a kid,” Portis said of the former NBA player who is now an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs. “I played AAU basketball for him, so he is a big role model to me.”
Portis also said he didn’t know the extent of what the pioneers went through, so playing Lloyd in the film was eye-opening.
Team Stripes coach Mitch Johnson, 39, is in his second season as the head coach of the Spurs and has been around basketball his whole life because his dad played in the NBA from 1970 to 1982
“I had a lot of old heads or so-called legends that I was able to meet,” Johnson said. “They taught me a lot about the game and the life and history of the game.”
The NBA’s legends have influenced the way the game is played from generation to generation. The Black pioneers influenced Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. Russell and Chamberlain influenced Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Julius Erving. Abdul-Jabbar and Erving influenced Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan, and those players influenced the players today.
Everyone has their pioneers, and Donovan Mitchell said he’s proud to have the Black Pioneers influence his life and journey.
“The representation and putting on for our community is huge,” Mitchell said. “I try to emulate what guys like Kareem did on and off the court. Understanding we have a platform to be able to do powerful things, I want to emulate what those guys have done.”
