Kevin Lloyd leaned forward, his tone marking the seriousness of his point.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you (were to) go to my father\u2019s house,\u201d Lloyd said. \u201cYou\u2019d never know he played basketball unless he told you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such is the fate of the NBA\u2019s pioneers. The NBA debuts 75 years ago of Earl Lloyd, Chuck Cooper and Nat \u201cSweetwater\u201d Clifton, the league\u2019s first Black players didn\u2019t garner headlines<\/a>.<\/p>\n Technically, Wataru \u201cWat\u201d Misaka, a 5-foot-7 point guard of Japanese descent, broke the NBA\u2019s color barrier<\/a> in November 1947 as a member of the New York Knicks in the Basketball Association of America (BAA). Seven months before Misaka\u2019s debut, Jackie Robinson took the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers for the first time.<\/p>\n In 1950, the NBA was still a niche league, and college basketball was more popular. Baseball was still America\u2019s pastime. Robinson\u2019s presence, coupled with his 1949 MVP award, was bigger news.<\/p>\n Today, Lloyd, Cooper and Clifton are relatively unknown to both the modern fan and the modern player. This season, the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) will try to change that. They\u2019ll be celebrating the 75th anniversary of the NBA\u2019s first Black players throughout the 2025-26 season with the first Pioneers Classic game, which will become an annual event, and awarding an NBA Pioneers trophy to highlight the trio\u2019s impact.<\/p>\n The journeys of the three men who integrated the NBA may have been overshadowed by the weight of history shifting all at once, but the stories of Lloyd, Cooper and Clifton have been woven into the fabric of the game.<\/p>\n Philadelphia 76ers rookie guard V.J. Edgecombe had no idea.<\/p>\n At this year\u2019s NBA Draft in New York, Edgecombe and other draftees had an opportunity to meet the families of Lloyd, Cooper and Clifton and learn about the early days of three Hall of Famers who helped integrate the NBA, now a multi-billion dollar global enterprise.<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t familiar with the players\u2019 stories prior to meeting their families,\u201d Edgecombe said. \u201cJust getting to meet them helped open my mind about the history of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n Born and raised in Bimini, in the Bahamas, Edgecombe migrated to America as a 9-year-old before rising up the high-school prospect ranks ahead of his lone collegiate season at Baylor.<\/p>\n \u201cI learned about the first African Americans to play in the NBA and their pain and just the different experiences of life and what they had to go through for future generations, and I\u2019m reaping what they sow,\u201d Edgecombe said. \u201cIt\u2019s just a blessing, though, to be in this position. It helped me cherish the game more and helped my passion grow for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n Carter Bryant, selected by the San Antonio Spurs with the 14th overall pick, also wasn\u2019t aware of the pioneers\u2019 stories before meeting the families, but he said the opportunity made him even more grateful to have joined the NBA\u2019s brotherhood.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a dope experience, understanding the heritage and what we\u2019ve come from before us, the people that laid the path for me to be able to be a professional in the sport I love and always dreamed of,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cBecause obviously growing up, you don\u2019t necessarily see who was the pioneer of it all. You didn\u2019t see the first people to break through that barrier. You see the people that reap the benefits, in terms of Michael Jordan, LeBron James, all the guys that we watch play nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n For both Edgecombe and Bryant, the stories of Lloyd, Cooper and Clifton inspired them and reminded them just how far the game they love has come.<\/p>\n On Oct. 31, 1950, when Earl \u201cBig Cat\u201d Lloyd stepped onto the court at Edgerton Park Arena in Rochester, N.Y. as a member of the Washington Capitols, he quietly made basketball history as the first Black player to play in an NBA game.<\/p>\n Lloyd had been a basketball star at West Virginia State College, known now as West Virginia State University. Listed as a guard in his pro debut, he recorded six points, 10 rebounds and five assists in a 78-70 loss to the Rochester Royals<\/a>. Although his stat line wasn\u2019t jaw dropping, Lloyd had changed the NBA forever.<\/p>\n Selected in the NBA Draft\u2019s ninth round earlier that year, the lanky 6-5 forward was a two-time All-America selection and conference champion. In the 1947-48 season, Lloyd and the Yellow Jackets went unbeaten throughout the Colored Intercollegiate Athletic Association, now the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA), in regular and postseason play.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of my father’s biggest accomplishments was (being from) where he came from,\u201d Kevin Lloyd said. \u201cHe went from dirt poor in Alexandria, Va., into the Hall of Fame. And his main thing was, in order to get to the Hall of Fame, he had a lot of handprints on him that helped him along the way.<\/p>\n \u201cMy father never wore fame on his sleeve. He had nothing around the house. He had a closet where he kept everything, even his Hall of Fame trophy. That’s how modest he was.\u201d<\/p>\n One day after Lloyd\u2019s debut, Chuck Cooper, former Duquesne star and the first Black player to be drafted<\/a> (second round, third pick), made his debut with the Boston Celtics in Fort Wayne, Ind., alongside future Hall of Famers Bob Cousy, \u201cEasy\u201d Ed Macauley and head coach Red Auerbach. Cooper contributed seven points in the season opener.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a barrier breaker,\u201d Chuck Cooper III said about his dad. \u201cBeginning at Duquesne University, team captain at a predominantly White college and becoming the second consensus All-American in college basketball history. He played in the college All-American game as co-captain, along with his eventual good friend and teammate, Bob Cousy<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Four days after Lloyd, Nat \u201dSweetwater\u201d Clifton, a 6-8 center, scored 16 points with 12 rebounds as a member of the New York Knicks against the Tri-Cities Blackhawks. Clifton had played at Xavier University of Louisiana for two years before serving in the United States Army.<\/p>\n \u201cThey kicked in the door at the same time,\u201d Kevin Lloyd told The Athletic.<\/p>\n Sports across the country were integrating, but acceptance was not a given.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen our fathers got into the NBA, the league wasn’t ready for Black stars,\u201d Chuck Cooper III said. \u201cThey primarily were brought in to rebound and play defense and on some occasions protect the White stars.<\/p>\n \u201cI think (my father) was more disappointed with not really having the opportunity to fully display his talent. And when you look at all three of the pioneers, my dad, Lloyd and Clifton, all three of them could have been absolute stars in the NBA if they were afforded that opportunity. You’re talking about the 1950s before the Civil Rights Act, right? So it was still legal to discriminate.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was pre-Emmett Till America.\u201d<\/p>\n Because of racial barriers denying full participation, Black players and other non-White athletes were forced to form segregated leagues and barnstorming teams, often playing in environments that were less than desirable.<\/p>\n \u201c(For) Black players, period \u2026 Well, there was nowhere else to go,\u201d said Louis \u201cSweet Lou\u201d Dunbar, a former Harlem Globetrotters player and coach and current director of player personnel. \u201cIf you wanted to be a professional athlete, you wanted to play the game of basketball, the Harlem Globetrotters was your ticket.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd where everybody started. I don\u2019t think Earl Lloyd ever came to the Globetrotters, but, you know, other than that, everybody else did. And, of course, they had the New York Rens back in the day as well. So, a lot of players played with the Rens, but this was the only avenue \u2014 the Harlem Globetrotters.\u201d<\/p>\n With teams like the Globetrotters, players were entertainers. There was an element of showmanship to their game. But in a newly integrated league, they often had to suppress their on-court flair.<\/p>\n \u201cMy father said that, when he played, they always told him to play down, don’t try to be a star,\u201d Clifton\u2019s daughter Jataun Robinson said. \u201cSo he had to stop doing some of the tricks from his time with the Globetrotters.<\/p>\n \u201cBut every once in a while he would do some of those things just to get the crowd roaring. And he would like what they gave him. They made him feel wanted. He says he got in trouble, but then they always let it go, because of the crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n The growth of sports in post-World War II America mirrored the country\u2019s labored progress on racism. The process was often painful.<\/p>\n \u201c(My dad) used to always say out of everything that he went through in his career, he forgave, but never forgets,\u201d Kevin Lloyd said of Earl. \u201cSome cities he went through, like Fort Wayne, St Louis, he couldn’t stay with the team at the hotel.<\/p>\n \u201cIn some cities he went to, he could stay with the team, but he couldn’t eat with them. He had to sit in his room until game time. Our parents took a lot of heat for all of today\u2019s players.\u201d<\/p>\n American professional sports\u2019 path to collective integration spanned eight decades, a slow crawl enabled by legalized public separation of people based on race.<\/p>\n Segregation was ingrained into baseball before the NBA (founded in 1946 as Basketball Association of America before the 1949-50 merger with National Basketball League), National Football League (1920) and National Hockey League (1917) were even created.<\/p>\n