How Black basketball players changed the sport in the 1970s

Some basketball fans may think of the 1970s as the so-called dark ages of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

TV ratings were down. Attendance at games was low. And the league was seen as "in decline," according to historian Theresa Runstedtler.

But she says the decade is pivotal, and too often overlooked. 

Runstedtler is a historian of race and sport who teaches at American University in Washington, D.C. Her new book, Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation that Saved the Soul of the NBA, is an exploration of how Black basketball players changed the sport in the 1970s. 

From lawsuits to labour activism to speaking out against police brutality, the struggles of the '70s set the template for the league today, she says. 

Runstedtler spoke with The Sunday Magazine's Piya Chattopadhyay about re-framing the era and the legacy those players left on today's NBA.

Here is part of their conversation.

Why focus on that era, and you say it's such a pivotal time for professional basketball?

So the period that I'm looking at is often referred to as the dark ages of the NBA, particularly in the late 1970s. And in our kind of popular memory of that time period, much as we look at the '70s, as almost this moment of decline in U.S. history, we also look at the NBA as in decline during this period. 

A period when basketball became kind of free flowing, and the players were selfish, and they were getting in trouble all the time, both on and off the court, whether it was fighting on the court, or taking cocaine off the court, they seem to always be in the headlines for the wrong reason. 

But one of the things that I was curious about was whether or not this was a racialized narrative, about the time