The Sixth Man

by Andre Iguodala

In 1908 Springfield experienced one of the most violent and intense race riots in American history.

Despite taking place in a northern town, the Springfield Race Riot was the primary reason for the founding of the NAACP.

For an entire winter, she walked to work every day, and home every day, without a winter coat.

I just wanted to be good.

For me, the point wasn’t to get it done. The point was to get it done better than everyone else. I didn’t want to be distracted. I didn’t want to

can see now that each milestone I hit wasn’t so much a milestone of technical ability, though there were those. They were really milestones of personal belief.

honors track meant all white students except for me.

The alternative is too dark and too scary. This country is designed to wreak absolute havoc on the confidence of black people.

See, any kind of greatness takes work. Everyone knows that. But what fewer people understand is that work itself takes faith.

Once my focus was off my defender and how I could beat him, it was like a whole other layer of basketball opened up to me.

Fuck that guy. Now I was definitely going to Lanphier. And I was going to win there too.

Why was it that white people always mentioned that I was born in the same city as Lincoln?

Despite myself I was starting to talk like this a lot now.

Michael Jordan, Penny Hardaway, Jalen Rose, Scottie Pippen—all these guys had mastered a deep, dry, low-volume, and perfectly bland way of declining to reveal anything without actually being rude.

The idea that someone could be as crazy good as Jeff Walker was and still go out like that has haunted me all my life.

But these towns have an inertia to them. A dangerous lethargy.

But I caught myself wondering if someday I’d be not just among these men but equal to them, looking cool and comfortable in crisp golf clothes, an icy drink clinking melodically in my hand and so much money in the bank that I didn’t even have to think about it. It seemed impossible. And yet . . .

And that’s the thing about professional sports. Everything is on a clock, and there is no time. There’s no time to process, to sit with feelings, to take bigger stock of what’s happening. There’s no time to grieve or transition.

Basketball is entertainment. It’s live, improvisational storytelling.

Yes, even basketball is storytelling!

Here were five wealthy black men, living in circumstances light-years beyond the wildest dreams of our parents, of our ancestors.

Like our lives would actually be in danger because a grown man made a job decision in a sport that has no real-world consequences? It boggled the mind. It was Curt Flood all over again.

There are white referees whose behavior feels uncomfortably like that of overseers. Not everyone is like this. But there are people who are like this.

We’re not supposed to say that there are fucked-up things about the way this game is played. We’re supposed to take the money and be quiet. We’re supposed to be grateful that we’ve been given an opportunity to have wealth, to send our kids to private schools. And the exchange is that we aren’t supposed to say anything about anyone. We’re supposed to wait quietly.

There are aches and pains and soreness and there is sweat and fatigue. But there is something else. A feeling of being free but trapped. Crowded and isolated at the very same time. I’m in a beautiful car. The