No athletes today benefit more from Muhammad Ali's legacy than basketball players.
Take a look at the ESPN World Fame 100.
Twenty of the people on the list are NBA players, the most representation of any league or sport. Eighteen of those 20 are African-American, including LeBron James at No. 2, Kevin Durant at No. 6 and Kobe Bryant at No. 11. This would not be possible without Ali.
Ali helped the world become accustomed to (if not always comfortable with) African-Americans as the face of a sport and a product pitchman.
His commercials for d-CON roach traps in the late 1970s were among the first national ads to feature an African-American athlete promoting non-sports products. Roach traps weren't glamorous, but it's indicative of the options available for black athletes at the time. Those Ali ads, on the heels of O.J. Simpson's Hertz commercials, helped pave the way for Julius Erving promoting ChapStick, Magic Johnson pitching 7-Up, then the onslaught of Michael Jordan marketing.
Now Ali's legacy manifests in the globalization of the NBA.
"Today I can sit and go to China and make trips to China and all over the world and people know my name and know my face," LeBron said, in the midst of an extended tribute to Ali. "I give all credit to Muhammad Ali because he was the first global icon. He is the GOAT. He is the greatest of all time, and it has zero to do with his accomplishments inside the ring."
Ali also pushed the envelope of individuality, stretched it so far that even a team sport like basketball could accommodate it. The NBA didn't stress conformity to the extent of baseball and football. Basketball players took Ali's stylistic flourishes and ran and jumped and dunked with it. No other sport had a voice as brash as Charles Barkley's, and Barkley got his outspokenness and even his vocal cadence directly from Ali.
Meanwhile, boxing, particularly Ali's heavyweight division, couldn't keep the chain going. Mike Tyson had a nice commercial portfolio going, including ads for Diet Pepsi and Kodak, but that all vanished with his 1992 rape conviction followed by a three-year stint in jail. No subsequent heavyweight boxer has captivated the public to the level of Tyson, let alone Ali. Can you even name the current heavyweight champion without using a search engine?
Ali was the last boxer who could make NBA players genuflect. Oh, they might respect Floyd Mayweather's skill and even pop by to say hi when they see him seated courtside at their games. But they'd never rush over en masse to greet him as both the American and Yugoslavian men's basketball teams did when Ali was honored at halftime of the 1996 Olympic gold medal game.
Jordan met Ali for the first time before an NBA Finals game in 1997 and immediately recognized the magnitude of the moment.
"He's a legend, not only in the ring but for his international stance for a lot of different things," Jordan said that day. "He's passed on a lot of legacy, a lot of opportunities to myself and other players in professional ranks that we have decided to extend on. We are fingers, and he certainly is a hand. It's always great to meet those type of people."
Ali showed up at a Los Angeles Lakers game in March of 1998 and entertained the players in the postgame locker room with magic tricks. He was still in there when the media was allowed into the room, and his presence ionized the air like a thunderstorm. Eventually the buzz died down, the reporters and players got down to their interview tasks and eventually Ali was ignored, left on his own, sitting on a chair in the corner and throwing soft punches at a phantom opponent.
It's hard to believe Muhammad Ali could ever be in a room and not be the focal point of everyone's attention. But it's even harder to imagine NBA players being so popular, or any sport mattering so much, if Ali had not forged the path that he did through skill, conviction and courage.