NBA Announces New Social Justice Award, Named After Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

The NBA has announced the creation and introduction of a new award. The league announced the new award named after Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

“Introducing the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion Award, a new annual honor that will recognize a current NBA player for pursuing social justice and upholding the league’s decades-long values of equality, respect, and inclusion,” the league announced.

“Each team will nominate one player and a selection committee led by Abdul-Jabbar will meet once a year to choose five finalists,” the league said. “The winner will then pick an organization to receive a $100,000 contribution, and the other four will choose an organization to receive $25,000. The inaugural winner and finalists will be announced later this year.”

“I was really very honored to be chosen to have the award named after me,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “As a kid, I was motivated by some of the people that you just mentioned like Muhammad Ali, Bill Russell, Jackie Robinson, these are people that motivated me.”

Regarding the significance of the award, the Hall of Famer said, “I think this award will enable various guys on various teams to start thinking about what they can do to help things in their community. They can become activists, people who are leaders in their community.”