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Blacks in the Nba

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Submitted By jadeen11
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Every NBA championship photo dating back from 1947 all the way until the 1954 season bore nothing but Caucasian faces in the photos. That all changed during the 1953-1954 school year. On that particular team, there were to African-American players named, Earl Lloyd and Jim Tucker. Earl Lloyd was chosen in the ninth round by the Washington Capitols. Lloyd was the first black player ever to play in the NBA. Prior to playing for the Capitols, Lloyd stated that he had never interacted let alone sat next to a white person before. Lloyd’s nine-year playing career included stops with Washington, the Syracuse Nationals, where he became the first Black player to win an NBA Championship in 1955 (defeating the Fort Wayne Pistons), and Detroit. He also became the NBA’s first African-American assistant coach for the Pistons in 1968.
During that same year there happened to be two other black players as well. One was Chuck Cooper who was drafted by the Boston Celtics during the second round making him the first African-American to be drafted into the NBA and the second was Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton who became the first African-American to sign an NBA contract with the New York Knicks in May of 1950. In his rookie year, Clifton averaged 8.6 points, and 7.5 rebounds per game, while helping the Knicks advance to the franchise’s first NBA Finals. Cooper was drafted by the Navy during his first semester in college. Cooper averaged 10.5 points per game and was named All-American during his senior year at Duke.
The owner Walter Brown drafted Cooper against the will of other owners. Cooper made his Celtics debut on November 1, 1950 against the Fort Wayne Pistons. Ultimately, Cooper played four years with Boston, before one-year stints with the Milwaukee/ St. Louis Hawks and the Fort Wayne Pistons. He ended his short career with averages of 6.7 points and 5.9 rebounds.

Since the

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