Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has been part of our sports culture for a half century while seemingly urging himself to stand apart from it. He did his work on the basketball court but did not feel the need to submit to the public confessional. He came to national renown as a 7-foot teenager when he was mocked for his height and felt stung by racism, even from the high school coach he so admired, Jack Donohue.
As his life moved along — to UCLA, the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers, and to his conversion to Islam and the changing of his name from Lew Alcindor — he built an emotional wall that few could penetrate. A similar barrier made his father almost unknowable to him.
He has tried to make himself better understood, to make amends for how his aloof — even rude — ways affected others. A Sports Illustrated profile in 1980 suggested that “after years of moody introspection, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is coming out of his shell.” A story in People four years later about his memoir, “Giant Steps,” promised that in the twilight of his career he had finally “lifted his veil of reticence.”
But no previous attempt to be better understood is likely to be as effective as “Kareem: Minority of One,” a new HBO Sports documentary that made its debut last week. He will always remain enigmatic or, in the words of his Lakers teammate James Worthy, “a different piece of toast.”
But the mystery of Abdul-Jabbar is less opaque for several reasons that make this documentary (his manager is among the producers) a successful form of expression. It has a deep archive of film and photos, a score that uses Nina Simone’s gorgeous version of “Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” informative talking heads and Abdul-Jabbar acting as the guide to scenes from his past, like 125th Street in Harlem where he recalled the rioting in 1964.
The film effectively introduces Abdul-Jabbar to a generation that did not witness his 20-year NBA career or possess direct knowledge of the context — accusations that he only played hard in the playoffs, among others — for his role in the 1980 comedy, Airplane!” where he tried to prove to a child in the cockpit that he was the co-pilot, Roger Murdock, not Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
But Abdul-Jabbar says in the documentary that he grasped the meaning of breaking free of his “brooding black guy” image to be in a comic romp. “I just seemed to be like Mr. Grump,” he says, “so being able to poke fun at my image was fun and changed people’s minds.”
Abdul-Jabbar has led an extraordinary and tumultuous life. A basketball prodigy who, as a teenager, was befriended by Wilt Chamberlain (who passed on his sweaty, smelly suits to him). A college player so completely dominant that the NCAA almost certainly banned dunking to keep him from doing it so often. The winner of three consecutive college titles and six NBA titles. He won championships alongside the greatest point guards of their generations, Oscar Robertson (with Milwaukee) and Magic Johnson (with the Lakers).
But Abdul-Jabbar’s ties to a controversial Muslim leader, Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, caused a long rift with his parents. Tragically, a feud between Khaalis and the Nation of Islam led to a massacre at a house that Abdul-Jabbar bought for Khaalis’ sect in Washington.
Some years later, a fire destroyed Abdul-Jabbar’s home in Bel Air, Calif.
The 90-minute documentary carries Abdul-Jabbar’s life only to the end of his playing career. That would have been the proper approach if he had spent his post-NBA career signing autographs or coaching. But he has redefined himself in ways that have brought further depth to his life. He is a historian, filmmaker, columnist at Time.com and novelist most recently of “Mycroft Holmes,” with Anna Waterhouse, about Sherlock’s brother. Over a quarter century Abdul-Jabbar has transformed himself into a public intellectual, a change barely noted in the documentary.
In 2004, I interviewed him as he publicized his book about an all-black tank battalion during World War II. His eyes lit up as he talked about the largely unknown unit. He felt joy in bringing the story to the public. “This is what I would I have done if I had to have a real job,” he said at a time when he was scouting for the New York Knicks and pursuing a head-coaching job. “I would have been a history teacher.”
“My role model in this is Paul Robeson,” he said of the athlete, actor, singer and political activist. “If I can be like him, and be multidimensional and competent in more than one area, I’d embrace that.”
The documentary should have trimmed part of his basketball life for his current one — swap some hoops stories from the past to give his vibrant present its due. The filmmakers’ mission to more fully understand an enigmatic public figure stands incomplete.
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