Among all African-Americans born in the 1980s, about 60 percent had unmarried parents. But I estimate that among African-Americans born in that decade who reached the NBA, a significant majority had married parents. In other words, the NBA is not composed primarily of men with backgrounds like that of LeBron James. There are more men like Chris Bosh, raised by two parents in Texas who cultivated his interest in electronic gadgets, or Chris Paul, the second son of middle-class parents in Lewisville, North Carolina, whose family joined him on an episode of Family Feud in 2011.
