Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA’s all time leading scorer, a six-time world champion, and a six-time league MVP. He was also in three of the greatest movies of all time (Fletch, Airplane, and Enter the Dragon)—the guy has done some stuff. And he’s done a lot of stuff since all of that. In the last 20 years, Abdul-Jabbar has served as a columnist for Time magazine, been appointed a cultural ambassador by Hilary Clinton, and written more than 10 books, on topics as diverse as inventors, Apaches, the Harlem Renaissance, and of course, basketball. His new book, Mycroft Holmes (Titan) is a fan-fictional imagining of the early life of another such accomplished man—Sherlock’s older and much more brilliant brother. Aside from the Holmeses, Abdul-Jabbar and I talked a bit about Lamar Odom, Donald Trump, and racial injustice in America.