{"product_id":"black-ball-kareem-abdul-jabbar-spencer-haywood-and-the-gener-9781645036975b","title":"Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation That Saved the Soul of the NBA","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA vital narrative history of 1970s pro basketball, and the Black players who shaped the NBA\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Against a backdrop of ongoing resistance to racial desegregation and strident calls for Black Power, the NBA in the 1970s embodied the nation’s imagined descent into disorder. A new generation of Black players entered the league, among them Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Spencer Haywood, and the press and public were quick to blame this cohort for the supposed decline of pro-basketball, citing drugs, violence, and greed. Basketball became a symbol for post–civil rights America: the rules had changed, allowing more Black people onto the playing field, and now they were ruining everything.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Enter \u003ci\u003eBlack Ball\u003c\/i\u003e, a gripping corrective in which scholar Theresa Runstedtler expertly rewrites basketball’s “Dark Ages.” Weaving together a deep knowledge of the game with incisive social analysis, Runstedtler argues that this much-maligned period was pivotal to the rise of the modern-day NBA. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bold Type Books","offers":[{"title":"Bargain","offer_id":42823060848720,"sku":"9781645036975B","price":8.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0592\/8173\/5760\/files\/9781645036975-l.jpg?v=1785890696","url":"https:\/\/bookoutlet.com\/products\/black-ball-kareem-abdul-jabbar-spencer-haywood-and-the-gener-9781645036975b","provider":"Book Outlet","version":"1.0","type":"link"}