Lloyd’s of Lying Down

Imagine if you will, a time when the NBA was so white even Hootie Johnson would have wept tears of joy. You could actually watch the polish on the floor yellow as the honky-filled games, bereft of skill or speed, crawled to their merciful 33-29 conclusions. Why Earl Lloyd even wanted to play remains a mystery, but on October 31, 1950, perhaps in a Halloween prank gone horribly awry, he became the first black man to play in an NBA game, scoring 6 points for the Washington Capitals against the Rochester Royals. Unlike Jackie Robinson, that first game was pretty much the highlight of a non-descript career that saw him average 8.4 points and 6.4 rebounds in 560 regular-season games over nine seasons. Lloyd died of undisclosed causes at the age of 86.