mlk nba day (Photo: Mark Jackson’s Instagram account)
In the last few years, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day has become sort of a mini-Christmas for the NBA. An MLK NBA holiday, if you will. It being a national holiday, the NBA plays a large number of games, starting with early matinees and including a few televised marquee match-ups.
Throughout the course of the day, there are video montages to the man who’s become synonymous with racial equality in the United States. Players and coaches are asked their thoughts on King and the day is generally treated as a celebration of basketball and social justice.
An odd mix, perhaps, since basketball was likely not on the forefront of King’s mind when leading marches and commanding audiences upward of 250,000.
However, the NBA, which once didn’t allow non-white athletes to compete, is now more the three-quarters African-American, according to 2011 numbers. Clearly King’s influence, as well as many other great men and women, has changed the league for the better.
“His legacy means a lot,” Golden State Warriors power forward Harrison Barnes said last week after practice, “He paved the way not only for just everyone here today, but also generations to come. Hopefully by all the things that he did, we can continue to carry on his principles of giving back and really making an impact in our community.”
People like Jackie Robinson, who broke down Major League Baseball’s color barrier four years before Earl Lloyd became the first African-American to play in an NBA game.
In February of last year, Jackson took the team to the Lorraine Hotel on an off day in Memphis, the site of King’s assassination. The site has since become National Civil Rights Museum.
“I believe that the job I’m holding today and the way I’m able to stay in hotels and get on flights and get on buses and drive what I drive and live where I live is a direct influence of Dr. King and the sacrifice that he made,” Jackson said last year, “This world is a better place because of him.”
Not everyone thinks highly of the NBA’s celebration, sort of the way many dislike the commercialization if other holidays. The NBA is cashing in on a great leader with purple shoes and “showcase” games, they might say. Regardless, for #DubNation it means the Warriors play the Indiana Pacers on national TV, where members of both teams will share their thoughts on King.
“I don’t really think about it as just this day. It’s something special everytime we step on the court,” Andre Iguodala said today after practice, “We try to make one day out of it but it’s pretty much everyday to be able to have the same rights to be viewed as equal.
“We take it for granted,” Iguodala added, “It’s an everyday thing and it’s more than just basketball. We should celebrate this day as a special day because it wasn’t always recognized in every state until recently.”
On MLK Day, hopefully the two teams put their differences aside from the bad blood exhibited between the two teams last February and play a great basketball game.
[NOTE: Poor Man’s Commish contributed to this report.]Follow @brownieNBA
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