Earl Lloyd, first black player in NBA history, dies at 86

Earl Lloyd, the first African-American to play in the NBA, died Thursday. He was 86.

Lloyd’s career wasn’t particularly spectacular -- the 6’5 small forward averaged 8.4 points and 6.4 rebounds over nine seasons -- but his importance was bigger than basketball. Lloyd won the 1955 NBA championship with the Syracuse Nationals and also coached the Detroit Pistons in 1971-72. He was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor in 2003.

Lloyd was one of three black players to join the league at the beginning of the 1950-51 season alongside Chuck Cooper of the Celtics and Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton of the Knicks. The fact that Lloyd played before the other two was a matter of scheduling. Cooper passed away in 1984. Clifton passed away in 1990.

The story of Lloyd and other black pioneers doesn’t get the publicity it should for a few reasons: While professional baseball was segregated for decades, the NBA was founded in late 1946, just a few months before Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier. And when the league did integrate, it was still a fledgling league, so it didn’t quite cause the same societal uproar as Robinson’s debut. And with three players, no one player got the recognition they deserved.

But that doesn’t mean Lloyd’s journey was easy. As he told the Sixers’ website a few years ago (the Syracuse Nationals were a predecessor to the Sixers):

“Those fans in Indianapolis, they yell[ed] stuff like, ‘Go back to Africa.’ And I’m telling you, you would often hear the N-word. That was commonplace. There were a lot of people who sat close to you who gave you the blues, man.”

To begin appreciating what Lloyd and his contemporaries went through to help mold the NBA into the diverse association we enjoy today, read this story Marc J. Spears wrote about Lloyd and his legacy in 2009.