Black Ball

Black Ball is a history of professional basketball in the 1970s and of the Black players who changed the NBA. The decade brought continued resistance to desegregation and loud demands for Black Power, and the league came to stand for a nation supposedly sliding into disorder.

A new generation of Black players, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Spencer Haywood, arrived in the league during these years. The press and the public readily blamed them for pro basketball's supposed decline, pointing to drugs, violence, and greed. The sport became a symbol of the post-civil rights era: the rules had changed to admit more Black athletes, and critics claimed those athletes were spoiling the game.

Scholar Theresa Runstedtler pushes back on that picture. She combines a thorough knowledge of the game with sharp social analysis to argue that this much-criticized period was pivotal in building the modern NBA. Black players brought an improvisational style that grew out of neighborhood playground courts. They also challenged the owners' autocratic control, winning higher salaries and more say over their careers. Their skill, style, and savvy, she argues, laid the groundwork for the league's worldwide popularity and profitability today.