Lakers Offering More Than Words in Effort to Heal Los Angeles’ Racial Divide

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — The cops, with their natty reversible “LAPD” jerseys worn with the white on the outside, started warming up at the east basket. A group of men aged 16-25 from the inner city, with no uniforms but so many Jordans and Kobes to make up the flat-out superior sneaker gear, started warming up at the west basket.

On this rare rain-soaked Southern California Saturday afternoon, the Lakers had invited members of the Los Angeles Police Department to play basketball in their gym against the young men from South Central L.A.

It was the third time in November the Lakers had opened their practice facility for this type of meeting. And it was proof that the NBA is taking action on an issue its officials and players like-mindedly wanted their league to lead.   

Delivering more than just preachy, wishful words.

Actually doing something.

But positive developments are not the same lightning rods as violent tragedies.

People staying alive do not make the same headlines as people being killed.

So what difference could this really make?

Lakers forward Tarik Black addresses the group. The youths half-jokingly ask for the Mercedes-Benz key dangling from Black’s hand. He indulges them with idle hoops chit-chat in a language they know well.

“The person who talks the most cash money usually the worst guy on the floor, though,” Black says with a smile.

Black then explains that he’s from one of the original neighborhoods with an epic racial divide, North Memphis. So he knows all about being stigmatized as a black kid with all these tattoos…except now he has his bachelor’s degree, plus a master’s degree in African-American studies. He’s also pursuing his real estate license, all while making seven figures in the NBA.

Black, 25, notes something else: “My first coach—my first mentor—was a police officer.”

One young man in a tank top puts his phone down and turns his eyes up.

“I have a lot of love for police officers, as well,” Black adds. “I understand. Trust me, I understand.”

Once the first game begins, a police officer wearing red Clippers shorts gets poked in the right eye. The guy wearing a black Mayweather-Pacquiao 2015 fight T-shirt and sparkling stud earrings is the one who did it, and he goes over to pat the officer on the butt with apology, basketball-style.

But then he comes over to the officer on the bleachers after game point to check again, this time more personally.

One of the kids who has come out to these Lakers open gyms is now planning a career as a highway patrol officer.

“From the experience he’s had here,” adds Dino Smiley, a man best known for running the famed Drew League, where even NBA stars play in the summer.

Smiley’s regular job is counseling young men for the City of Los Angeles’ parks and recreation department.

“The interaction has just been great,” Smiley says of the Lakers’ events. “You catch ’em on the sidelines … just talking.”

For some perspective, consider what LAPD senior lead officer Christopher Baker saw at the start of this unique run.

“The first week, when we all walked in here and we were sitting on the bleachers, there was a separation of police officers and community,” Baker recalls. “You could see it. You didn’t have to be a paid observer to see what was going on.”

The process of building off the natural respect between basketball players was the idea of Lakers community relations director Jason McDevitt, though the seed was actually planted by NBA star Carmelo Anthony.

McDevitt was in attendance at Anthony’s July town hall meeting to address policing issues in South Central.

When McDevitt shared several concepts for the Lakers extending the NBA’s “Building Bridges with Basketball” program, there was overwhelming support for this …

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