The real ‘Sweetwater’ story has a Detroit angle

The new ‘Sweetwater’ movie, about the first Black player to sign an NBA contract, has opened in theaters. While the story is about how Nat Clifton made history with the Knicks, one could argue, he actually broke into the pro game with Detroit years earlier.

And the Los Angeles Lakers might not be in existence if it had worked out.

While Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947 is celebrated as a historic event, the first Black players in the NBA have been little more than a footnote.

The new movie ‘Sweetwater’ is about Nat ‘Sweetwater’ Clifton, a 6-foot-8  forward who became the first Black player to sign a NBA contract in 1950.  It has major stars like Richard Dreyfus, Jeremy Piven, Cary Elwes and Eric Roberts in it, while Everett Osborne plays the title character.

While Clifton was the first to sign a contract, he was actually one of three Black players (along Chuck Cooper with the Boston Celtics and Earl Lloyd with Washington), that started playing in the 1950-51 season.

Technically, the film is correct, the NBA had no Black players until Clifton and the other two entered the league. But the NBA was only starting its third season, having come into existence in 1948 with the merger of the National Basketball League and the Basketball Association of America.

However, it was not the first time there were Black players, including ‘Sweetwater’, who had played for a major pro basketball team. Three had put on the uniform of Detroit almost four years earlier.

The Detroit Gems bring pro basketball to Motor City

The pro basketball landscape was much different in 1946 than it is now.

There was no NBA yet. The two top places to play were the National Basketball League (NBL) and the Basketball Association of America. (BAA).

The top Black players of the day had their own travel teams that were not affiliated with a league. The Harlem Globetrotters were not comedians back then, but traveled the country as one of the top basketball squads in the country.

The NBL was based mostly in the Midwest and thought of as the bigger and more established league. One of its top clubs were the Pistons, then of Fort Wayne, Indiana, who had won the championship the previous two seasons (the Pistons would not win another pro title for 44 years). The BAA had the glamourous big Eastern franchises, like the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks.

WIth the soldiers returning from World War II, people were looking for some entertainment. Two Dearborn businessmen, accountant C. King Boring and his partner, jeweler Maurice Winston, got an NBL franchise for Detroit and called it the Gems, after Winston’s profession.

The idea seemed sound. Detroit was a booming city and already had professional baseball, ice hockey and football teams, why not basketball as well?

However, the team struggled from the start, on the court and off.

The Gems had trouble finding a home court as its new arena in Dearborn was behind schedule and Olympia Stadium was far too expensive.

They finally settling on a few high schools (Ferndale Lincoln and finally small Holy Redeemer). The product was not very good, as the Gems ended up 4-40 on the season.

The Gems needed help, and ‘Sweetwater’ was on the way.