Commissioner David Stern wants to put an N.B.A. Development League team in Harlem, U.S.A. The idea was jolting at first. Now it’s intriguing.
Harlem, Stern said Saturday, represents a caldron of basketball tradition that would give much-needed weight to the N.B.A.’s seven-year-old D-League, a place teams can send young talent to mature. “Harlem represents a basketball tradition that for decades and decades and decades has given the N.B.A. so many players,” Stern said in a telephone interview.
The most intriguing aspect of a team in Harlem is finding a place to play. Some have said the armory at 142nd Street and Fifth Avenue. But the only place to play is in the old Renaissance Casino and Ballroom on 138th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. Some see the building as an eyesore. I see it as a bridge between Harlem’s past and future.
Every day, often twice a day, I pass the old Renaissance. The building, boarded up and worn down, gives no hint of its glorious past. I always stare. I can practically hear happy voices, bands blaring. I can see Pop Gates and John Isaacs playing on a slippery hardwood court with the Rens, and winning. Again.
Today I can see a new Renaissance team playing in Harlem.
Harlem is changing before our eyes: babies pushed by their nannies; swank health clubs; high rises blotting out the sun; Starbucks.
There would be many, many layers of red tape as well as community resistance to overcome. The Renaissance has been boarded up for nearly 30 years. The place needs work, lots of work. Seating capacity might be an issue, although
the old Rens accommodated crowds of 3,000 in the halcyon days of the 1920s and 1930s, when they were the physical face of Harlem. Dan Reed, president of the D-League, said there were some franchises with 3,000-seat arenas.The development league badly needs a presence in the Northeast. New York would be the hub. Harlem would become the D-League capital.In fact, the Knicks have expressed an interest. “The Knicks are all over the idea,” Stern said. “It’s a great cultural tie-in.”A renaissance is taking place in Harlem (that’s a generous description; accelerated gentrification is more to the point). Some shattered dreams are being forced out, new dreamers are moving in. The renovated ballroom and a developmental basketball team could be bridges between Harlem’s present and future.
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Harlem is home to the Rucker League and the Entertainers League, although the leagues are just that — entertainment. From what I gather from Stern and Reed, the league’s teams — and the team that would eventually come to Harlem — will not simply develop players but train a workforce for placement in the N.B.A. or a franchise in another sport.
“I don’t want this to just be about basketball,” Stern said.
This month marks the 84th anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance Big Five playing its first game inside the Renaissance.
The game was played Nov. 3, 1923. For the next 16 years, the Rens were one of the best basketball teams in the country. They won the first world professional championship in 1939.
Dr. Calvin O. Butts III is the pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and president of SUNY College at Old Westbury. He is one of the founders of the Abyssinian Development Corporation, which owns the Renaissance, among other properties. During an interview Saturday, Butts outlined his vision for a renovated Renaissance Casino and Ballroom, saying it would be a cultural space, a repository for the arts, music, the spoken word, dance.
But home to an N.B.A. minor league team?
“It’s an interesting thought,” he said. “This is something I can consider. We haven’t really thought about this at all.”
A few years ago, Butts created a wide-ranging sports program at Abyssinian. He acknowledged that including a basketball component in the Renaissance renovation — in this case an N.B.A. Development League team — was “in keeping with what the space was originally used for.”
The Renaissance Casino and Ballroom was a hub of black culture in Harlem.
The Renaissance opened in 1923. The casino was built by the black-owned Sarco Realty Company. Bob Douglas, who founded the Rens basketball team and is known as the father of black basketball, made a deal with Sarco to play games and practice in the ballroom. In return, Douglas agreed to pay a percentage of the gate receipts. He also agreed to call the team the Renaissance Big Five. The team became famous as the Rens, and between 1924 and 1940, they were among the best teams — black or white — in the United States.
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Once the N.B.A. hurdles the substantial bureaucratic and community barriers, the final challenge will be naming the D-League franchise.
On second thought, that’s easy. They’ll be the New Harlem Rens.
The Renaissance Casino at 138th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, a busy place in 1936, left, but abandoned now.
11/12/2007 12:31 PM
