Spencer Haywood

Known for Acting

4/22/1949(Age 76)

Silver City, Mississippi, USA

Biography

Spencer Haywood is an American former professional basketball player and Olympic gold medalist. Haywood is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, being inducted in 2015.

Known For (4 credits)

Movie

The Waiting Game

2024

An incredible story of the ABA players who created much of what the billion dollar NBA is today–the 3-point shot, slam dunk contest, fashion and culture innovators–are forgotten in a business deal gone bad. A tiny not-for-profit fights back in this David vs. Goliath film.

1.0

Shut Up and Dribble

2018

An inside look at the changing role of athletes in our fraught cultural and political environment, through the lens of the NBA.

7.0

Basketball: A Love Story

2018

'Basketball: A Love Story' is a series of 62 interconnected short stories that creates a vibrant mosaic of the game, featuring 165 exclusive interviews. The cast encompasses basketball's most prominent figures and explores the complex nature of love as it relates to the game.

Movie

Full Court: The Spencer Haywood Story

2016

Narrated by Public Enemy's Chuck D, the documentary traverses Haywood's life from his humble beginnings in Mississippi raised by a single mother to his induction into the NBA Hall of Fame. Basketball provided him a way out and in foregoing college to play hoops, he irrevocably changed the rules of how the game was played from the very top echelons of the NBA. As a 20-year old former Olympian, Haywood sue the NBA for the right to turn pro without finishing college. The case went to the Supreme Court and in 1971, the Court's decided in favor of Haywood. Subsequently, the decision abolished the NBA's mandatory draft eligibility requirement of four years of college. The ruling paved the way for today's NBA's superstars like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Kevin Garnett to bypass college and play in NBA teams right out of high school.