On NBA's Court, Minority Rules In Reversed Role -- Whites Learn `What It's Like To Be The Minority At Times'

Matt Geiger is a rangy, goatee-sporting, 7-foot center for the National Basketball Association's Charlotte Hornets, an average player who performs with reckless zeal. On this night, in the clowning atmosphere of his team's locker room, he is a juicy target for post-game ribbing.

One teammate draws a cartoon-like pickle-headed figure on the chalkboard. "That's Geiger!" shouts a teammate approvingly. "You gotta get the big eyes," another player implores the artist. As others join in, point guard Muggsy Bogues observes that Geiger is slipping on his pants minus underwear. "Oh, he ain't got no drawers on!" exclaims Bogues, who cracks up laughing.

Geiger is ignoring the playful barbs of his black teammates because he is too busy describing what it is like to be white in the NBA. "Yeah, there's a little razzing," explains Geiger, one of two whites on the Hornets' 12-man roster, "but it's all in good fun."

Geiger is a rarity: a white man trying to fit in among blacks who dominate his profession.

In 1957, 93 percent of the NBA's players were white. Today, in the NBA's 50th anniversary season, about 80 percent are black.

It is one of the most unusual circumstances in the American work force: whites as minorities in a high-paying industry closely scrutinized by the public. Typically, it is blacks and other minorities who must conform to the norms of a mostly white workplace.

The 50-year commemoration of Jackie Robinson's integrating major league baseball has brought renewed attention to racial issues in sports. And the NBA, now in the midst of the playoffs, is an intriguing laboratory for exploring how whites fare in an exclusive, predominantly black society.

Throughout the season The Washington Post interviewed players, coaches and others about this unique world of racial interaction. Some white players talked of being anonymous pros who can't get into competitive summer pick-up games in black neighborhoods because no one will choose them. Some black players talked of being big stars on the court but feeling underrepresented in the ranks of team management.

"There's not that equality in the front office," says Detroit Pistons forward Grant Hill, "so we don't really dominate the game."

For many white players, the NBA is an entry point to deeper racial understanding.

"It's a great experience for a white player in the NBA because you see life through other people's eyes," says Steve Kerr, a three-point shooting specialist with the NBA champion Chicago Bulls. "You see what it's like to be the minority at times."

Geiger still remembers a Miami shopping spree with former Miami Heat teammates Keith Askins and Bimbo Coles - neither a recognizable star - in which sales clerks treated the black players as though they didn't exist. "To be there and really see the looks on their faces and to have us talk about it later in the day, it just gives you an understanding of what it's like," Geiger said.

But white players also realize they operate in a privileged environment.

"In the real world, you're not going to have 12 guys - 10 black and two white - travel together seven, eight months out of the year," said Scott Brooks, the only white player on the New York Knicks. "We do everything together. I think that's the greatest gift athletics brings to society."

"At the same time," adds Kerr, "we live in sort of a utopian society where everybody is doing well financially. And you don't have the same sort of racial resentment and competition that you have a lot in the working world."

In interviews, white players discussed everything from affirmative action to rap music to inner-city life to racial stereotyping. Some said their association with black players in the NBA has heightened their empathy for those who face discrimination and helped them drop preconceived notions about blacks. Others said they feel constant pressure to prove they belong in the league. And some clearly struggle with the decline of white superstars as the NBA's popularity climbs.

Jon Barry, a reserve guard with the Atlanta Hawks, is one of five Barrys to become big-time basketball players. His brother, Brent, is the Los Angeles Clipper guard who won last year's NBA slam-dunk contest. His father, Hall-of-Famer Rick Barry, is one of 18 white players cited by a special NBA panel as among the league's 50 greatest players.

But when approached about the status of white players in the league, young Barry responded: "You mean the dying breed?"

Only four white players were among the 24 stars the fans and coaches picked to play in this year's All-Star game. No white player finished the regular season among the top 15 scorers or 10 leading rebounders. Just one - Utah Jazz point guard John Stockton - was among the top 20 assist leaders.

White players did finish first in the league in free-throw shooting, field goal percentage and blocked shots. And one of the early favorites to reach the NBA championship finals, the Utah Jazz, is the only team in the league to have a majority-white starting unit.

But for many young white athletes, the league has become a stagnant slice of the job market. If the league names a "50-greatest" team from 1990 to the year 2000, Jon Barry hypothesizes, "there are not going to be many white guys on that team."

The exception to the trend is the burgeoning crop of Eastern European players who have found a pipeline to the NBA in the past five years - players such as the Washington Bullets' Gheorghe Muresan, the Chicago Bulls' Toni Kukoc and the Boston Celtics' Dino Radja.

With a few exceptions, however, white players have not earned respect throughout the league. New Jersey Nets center Jack Haley, who at 6 feet 10 and 242 pounds is unimposing by NBA standards, epitomizes what some black players claim is an informal policy on many teams: reserving end-of-the-bench roster spots for white players of marginal skill.

Selected by the Chicago Bulls in the fourth round of the 1987 NBA draft, Haley spent a season in Spain. He has since shuttled between NBA teams, never logging many minutes or having an impact. His most prominent role was as the towel-waving, bench-riding teammate/pal of Dennis Rodman in the 1993-96 seasons, the unofficial explainer of Rodman's mood swings.

Ask Knicks forward Buck Williams if there are white players in the league simply because of their race and Williams, president of the National Basketball Players Association, doesn't hesitate.

"Yes, there's no question," he says. But, he adds, "I think diversity is a good thing. I think we should have more diversity in corporate America."

The NBA, with only 348 jobs for players, provides an interesting twist to the affirmative-action debate. In the larger society, high-achieving blacks often feel as though their success is under a microscope.

"It's reverse in our industry," said Williams, who is black. "If you come in as a white ballplayer it's taken that you're a token, whereas in corporate America we're looked at as tokens."

Bullets General Manager Wes Unseld is asked the classic affirmative-action question often applied to blacks in the work force: If you had to choose between two players of equal skill who play the same position and you had no white players on your roster, would you choose the white player? "I think you would think about that," says Unseld. "I could say that I wouldn't, but I'm sure that I would."

In 1980, Ted Stepien, then the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, publicly voiced the long whispered view that maintaining a quota of white players on teams was good for business. "I think the Cavs have too many blacks, 10 of 11," he said, eliciting a rebuke from the league office. "You need a blend of white and black. I think that draws, and I think that's a better team."

The NBA may soon have to confront the same diversity questions that other industries grapple with, says Frederick Lynch, a Claremont McKenna College professor who has written widely on affirmative action.

"What if you produced team after team after team that is all black?" he asked, adding that if "you never saw white players on the court, I think little red flags would go up in the front office. It would trigger questions (from the public): `Why is that?' "

The concerns were different in 1950, when the Boston Celtics made Duquesne University star Chuck Cooper the first black player drafted by an NBA team. Early black stars, such as Bill Russell, performed spectacularly on the court, then walked outside the arena and found they couldn't use the same restrooms as their white teammates.

"It was tougher being a black player (then) than it is being a white player today," says Red Auerbach, the former Celtics coach, now vice chairman of the team. "It's as simple as that. . . . We went into some cities where you couldn't get food."

If black players sometimes believe their careers are confined to the court, white players sometimes feel their on-court success is hampered by tough-to-beat stereotypes.

Some call it the extra pressure of being white.

"Oh yeah," says Rex Walters, a 6-foot-3 guard with the Philadelphia 76ers. "The perception is different of a white guy. The first thing you think of with Rex Walters is I'm a shooter. The first few years in the league I tried to fight that. I tried to show my athleticism. But then I just accepted it. Being a white guy you're expected to be able to shoot the ball."

The Bullets' Tim Legler can definitely shoot the ball. Last season, when he was healthy, he led the league in three-point shooting and won the three-point contest at the All-Star Game.

But the rap on Legler - indeed, on most white guards "automatically from Day 1," he says - is that he's not quick enough, a defensive liability. "You can stop your man nine times in a row and if on the 10th time your man gets around you and dunks on you, you're too slow," he explains. "It's a form of labeling that goes around in the league."

Still, Legler is thrilled just to be in the league. Six years of toiling intermittently in the Continental Basketball Association, the NBA's way station, can give you perspective.

And sometimes perspective can have an ironic twist. To anyone who has followed the debates about diversifying the work force, Legler's conclusions have a familiar ring.

"I've always contended that one of the most difficult things to do is be white and make it in the NBA," he said.