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Basketball love, founded upon information, analysis and humor. Curated by Eric Angevine

  1. (via Twitter / BlackFives: What if? #harlemrens @nba …)

    (via Twitter / BlackFives: What if? #harlemrens @nba …)

  2. Claude Johnson being interviewed by the legendary Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, Jr., host of the show African-American Legends on City University Television (CUNY-TV).

  3. “Recently, I conducted such a program at the Barclays Center, along with Nets guard C.J. Watson, for some local elementary school students. It consisted of showing the kids a collection of vintage basketball equipment (including a laced ball, kneepads and kangaroo leather shoes), discussing the ways the game is different (and the same) today, and then letting them play pickup basketball, but with one mind-bending caveat — they had to play by the pre-1915 rules, namely, that a player who had already dribbled the ball could no longer shoot it, or else it would be a turnover.” (via Early education helps us ‘Make history now’ | The Greenwich Post)

    “Recently, I conducted such a program at the Barclays Center, along with Nets guard C.J. Watson, for some local elementary school students. It consisted of showing the kids a collection of vintage basketball equipment (including a laced ball, kneepads and kangaroo leather shoes), discussing the ways the game is different (and the same) today, and then letting them play pickup basketball, but with one mind-bending caveat — they had to play by the pre-1915 rules, namely, that a player who had already dribbled the ball could no longer shoot it, or else it would be a turnover.”

    (via Early education helps us ‘Make history now’ | The Greenwich Post)

  4. “Brooklyn Nets General Manager Billy King presented Johnson with the “Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things Award” in honor of his tireless efforts in conducting research about the Black Fives and cultivating a network of the players’ descendants.” (via [UNSUNG HEROES] The Black Fives: Black Basketball Pioneers - Photos - EBONY)

    “Brooklyn Nets General Manager Billy King presented Johnson with the “Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things Award” in honor of his tireless efforts in conducting research about the Black Fives and cultivating a network of the players’ descendants.”

    (via [UNSUNG HEROES] The Black Fives: Black Basketball Pioneers - Photos - EBONY)

  5. "Winning the World’s title, the Washington team performed a feat that NO PREVIOUS WINNER HAS RECORDED. They finished the 1943 season with a perfect record having won every one of their 41 starts. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE TURN OF THE CENTURY THAT A PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL TEAM HAS ENJOYED A SEASON WITHOUT A SINGLE DEFEAT."

    ― Forget Patriots. Check Out This Perfect Season. | Black Fives

  6. (via Edwin B. Henderson Elected To Basketball Hall Of Fame! | Black Fives)

    (via Edwin B. Henderson Elected To Basketball Hall Of Fame! | Black Fives)

  7. “You have almost certainly never heard of Hudson Oliver, a fact that an indefatigable, self-styled historian named Claude Johnson aims to change, beginning next Sunday night, when the Brooklyn Nets host the San Antonio Spurs and a permanent photo exhibit will be unveiled in the main concourse of Barclays Center. The exhibit will consist of six striking, six-foot-high photographs that will not only commemorate Black History Month, but honor the Nets’ Brooklyn forbearers — and the legacy of the basketball equivalent of baseball’s Negro Leagues. Johnson calls it the Black Fives Era, and seeing that he has done more research into it than any person on earth, why shouldn’t he get to name it?” (via The first Kings of Brooklyn: Historian aims to rescue and rejuvenate the social history of African-Americans in basketball - NY Daily News)

    “You have almost certainly never heard of Hudson Oliver, a fact that an indefatigable, self-styled historian named Claude Johnson aims to change, beginning next Sunday night, when the Brooklyn Nets host the San Antonio Spurs and a permanent photo exhibit will be unveiled in the main concourse of Barclays Center.

    The exhibit will consist of six striking, six-foot-high photographs that will not only commemorate Black History Month, but honor the Nets’ Brooklyn forbearers — and the legacy of the basketball equivalent of baseball’s Negro Leagues. Johnson calls it the Black Fives Era, and seeing that he has done more research into it than any person on earth, why shouldn’t he get to name it?”

    (via The first Kings of Brooklyn: Historian aims to rescue and rejuvenate the social history of African-Americans in basketball - NY Daily News)

  8. “In 1996, the National Basketball Association published an encyclopedic history — 800 pages about the players and the teams. Claude Johnson, who was the league’s director of international licensing at the time, leafed through it and found only two and a half pages devoted to the all-black teams that had predated the N.B.A. Only two teams were mentioned. There must have been others, he thought. He has spent the past 16 years filling in the gaps, starting with amateur basketball clubs organized in the early years of the 20th century. They were followed in the 1920s by a few professional teams — some with black owners, some with white owners, including one run by, among others, a grandfather of the wrestling promoter Vince McMahon.” (via Long Before the Brooklyn Nets, There Were the Black Fives - NYTimes.com)

    “In 1996, the National Basketball Association published an encyclopedic history — 800 pages about the players and the teams. Claude Johnson, who was the league’s director of international licensing at the time, leafed through it and found only two and a half pages devoted to the all-black teams that had predated the N.B.A.

    Only two teams were mentioned. There must have been others, he thought.

    He has spent the past 16 years filling in the gaps, starting with amateur basketball clubs organized in the early years of the 20th century. They were followed in the 1920s by a few professional teams — some with black owners, some with white owners, including one run by, among others, a grandfather of the wrestling promoter Vince McMahon.”

    (via Long Before the Brooklyn Nets, There Were the Black Fives - NYTimes.com)

  9. blackfives: A vintage laced basketball, used circa 1935. #vintage #basketball #history #antique #ball #laces #sports #oldschool #cage #equipment #instagood #instagear (Taken with Instagram)

    blackfives:

    A vintage laced basketball, used circa 1935. #vintage #basketball #history #antique #ball #laces #sports #oldschool #cage #equipment #instagood #instagear (Taken with Instagram)

  10. blackfives: You know head coach Ray Crowe was great if the court is named after him not Big O. #crispusattucks #indy #indianapolis #blackhistory #basketball #tigers #1955 #indiana #highschool #hoops #crowehall #pioneers #bigo #museum #blackfives (Taken with Instagram)

    blackfives:

    You know head coach Ray Crowe was great if the court is named after him not Big O. #crispusattucks #indy #indianapolis #blackhistory #basketball #tigers #1955 #indiana #highschool #hoops #crowehall #pioneers #bigo #museum #blackfives (Taken with Instagram)