New Book Explores the NBA During 'Awkward Teenage Years'

Criblez: Well I think that this is actually a uniform change from earlier days. In the 1950s and 1960s the players wore satin shorts that actually had belts on them. And so, the introduction of you know drawstring shorts was actually an improvement over what they had worn. And for them that was stylish. It was cool. It was the look. And if you look not only at the uniform length--the short shorts, the uniform colors they go from kind of being fairly bland in the 1950s and 1960s, [which was] pretty standard, to now we have the introduction of colors like lime green and purple. And the uniforms get pretty outrageous in the NBA in the 1970s. So not only are they wearing these short shorts that we like to make fun of you know 50 years later, but they're experimenting with all these different unique uniform designs and coming up with some really wild combinations.

Criblez: Well beginning in the 1970s about three quarters of the league was white. By the end of the decade we have an African American majority. And so, we have a split during the decade in which the league becomes blacker. More African Americans are playing in the league. Prior to the 1970s, there was no quota against African Americans playing. There was certainly unofficial quotas. Teams didn't want to have too many black players, because they wanted to attract white fans. What they found is that over the course of the 1970s not only were African American players able to compete on the court, but they were also able to compete at the box office. And the title of my book, the subtitle includes Dr. J and Pistol Pete. Dr. J's an African American and Pistol Pete was a white player. And in fact, by the time Pistol Pete came into the league he was almost seen as a "great white hope." Kind of a white player that was a good white player in a league that was becoming dominated by African Americans. So a league that was actually closer to 50/50 in 1970 became overwhelmingly populated by African American players by later in the decade.

Criblez: Well part of it was that basketball has been and always probably will be associated with an urban game. It's a sport that's way more popular in cities than is baseball or football. And so, inner cities have long been a kind of training ground for young basketball players. And for a multitude of reasons inner cities have long been populated by African Americans. And so the tie of inner city to the game of basketball has been long established. What we have is that in the late 1960s into the 70s is African American youth had long been playing basketball, but now they're able to play it professionally and in an organized level. And not only are they being tolerated in the pro-game, but they're actually being encouraged to play it. And so in many African American communities this is a way of social mobility. In a country that's still in many ways limiting their political rights and social rights that one way to move up the economic and social ladder is to be a professional athlete. So a lot of that is tied to those kind of changes in America.

Criblez: Well the 70s as I argue in my book witnessed the birth of the modern NBA. So beginning in 1969 1970, you had just a handful of teams. Again the league was about half white half black, and over the course of the 1970s we see things like the dunk become an important part of the game. Now players had dunked before 1970, but beginning in the 70s it becomes part of the show of the game. There's a famous player named Darryl Dawkins who begins naming his dunks. People are celebrated for the artistic element of dunking rather than just it being a simple two points. We also see at the end of the decade the introduction of the three point shot, which again is an important element of modern professional basketball, but wasn't introduced until the 1970s. So we also see basketball undergoes this huge shift in which it begins reaching more people through television contracts. We start to see superstars really emerge in the 1970s and then of course these changes on the court they really make it a sport that comes of age in the 70s.

Criblez: The way I describe it is kind of like the teenage years of the NBA. So the founding fathers of the NBA are men like Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Bob Pettit. There's a whole generation of stars in the 1960s that become fairly iconic Jerry West, Oscar Robertson. There's a whole litany of names. And then in the 1980s the league really becomes global with as you mentioned Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan. Between the era there are very few players that actually define that decade [and] that really come and are seen as iconic. So one is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He's iconic. But in many ways he is--he's difficult to market. He's kind of shy and quiet. He's a Muslim at a time when America is really struggling with this issue of Muslim vs. Christian. And so, they undergo some growing pains in the 1970s. And so, they go from this golden age of basketball in the 1960s with Bill Russell and the Celtics championship teams. And then in the 1980s you have the iconic global game Magic Johnson, Larry Bird. And then in between is this awkward teenage years of the 1970s.

Criblez: Well one controversy is the fact that player salaries are rapidly increasing. Beginning in 1970, the average player made about $35,000 a year, which at the time was fairly good money, but it's no where near the life changing money that we see NBA players get today right?

Criblez: Sure. And by the end of the decade the average salary had jumped to $120,000-$130,000, which again is no where near the multi-million dollar contracts of today. But still for an average NBA player in the late 70s to make that much money was truly life changing in many ways. And so that became incredibly controversial. This idea that in 1970 you could kind of relate to the players. They made a little bit more money than you, but many of them spent their off season selling insurance or cars or working second jobs, because it wasn't life changing money. By the end of the 70s they seemed to be totally disconnected. That they're the celebrities that are untouchable. That are on a different plane economically. You have the highest paid players making by the end of the 1970s almost a $1 million a season, which again seems laughable compared to modern NBA contracts, but at the time really seems to be incredibly controversial. So that's one big controversy. Another big one is violence. The NBA is a violent league in the 1970s. There are fights repeatedly in the league, but it 1977 there was one particular event in which a player nearly killed another on the court with an on court punch. So he punched him while they were on the court and one of the players nearly died. Well this sets off of course as you can imagine a lot of alarms that the league is in trouble. Not only are our players being paid way too much money, but now they're violent and another that we mentioned earlier is that the league is becoming predominantly African American. So you have a league that in the late 70s seen as being too black, too violent and too rich. And this creates a lot of problems and controversies, because the players of course are defending the fact they're making good money and that it's well-deserved. That the owners clearly are not poor. But the perception from the outside is that these are incredibly controversial elements of this game.