NBA in the 60s: Embry details indignities, little support

By WAYNE EMBRY
For The Associated Press

CLEVELAND (AP) — Wayne Embry, a Hall of Famer and longtime NBA executive, talks about the indignities he and other players endured during the turbulent 1960s. The 84-year-old Embry says league executives made it clear they didn’t want players to get involved in civil rights demonstrations or war protests and that players’ insecurity about their jobs kept them sidelined. The 6-foot-8 Embry says the league was so insignificant in the late 50s and early 60s that his aspiration was to play for the Harlem Globetrotters –- or go to business school. He wasn’t sure there was a place for him in the NBA.