While the San Antonio Spurs and Tony Parker were putting a 102-88 whipping on the Brooklyn Nets a few days ago at Barclays Center, a young man hollered out to his lady friend, “I’ll meet you by the pictures over there.” The pictures being a collection of images blown up to mural- size, showing the basketball players of a century ago.
While it may have been a disappointing evening for the man and his lady, presumably local Nets fans, not so for about 60 people who were guests of the Nets and Barclays Center. They had gathered on the practice court of the Nets for their own special celebration. A celebration of the past. A celebration of family.
Many of them had never met one another. But thanks to Claude Johnson, the founder of the Black Fives Foundation, thanks to the Nets organization and, in particular, thanks to David Berliner, a vice president at Forest City Ratner, owner of the Barclays Center, a special ceremony was organized in honor of Black History Month, bringing together descendants of the players from the Black Fives basketball teams, dating back as far as 1908.
The players and teams back then, many of whom played under the banner of the Smart Set, were Brooklyn’s first professional basketball players. Their tales have been unearthed by Johnson during his two decades of research.
As the Barclays Center was coming to life, Johnson hit on the idea of creating a series of murals that would reveal the largely forgotten history of professional basketball in Brooklyn, linking the past to the present. A series of murals, clinging to the walls of the main corridor in Barclays Center, now brings back the legacy of the men and women who were the foundation and pioneers of professional basketball in Brooklyn.
The event united those families whose ancestors, as depicted in Johnson’s archival photos, are stark proof that indeed, the game of professional basketball in Brooklyn didn’t begin with the Nets, but with the Smart Set of Brooklyn and the Black Fives.