From Sportslawnews.com:
After being named the anchor of the gold-medal 1968 U.S. Olympic basketball Team, Spencer Haywood became known for his exploits on the basketball court. However, looking back at the career of Spencer Haywood an argument can be made that his greatest triumph was not on the basketball court but in the court of law, when he single-handedly took on the draft policies of the National Basketball Association.
Prior to 1971, the National Basketball Association had a rule that required a graduating high-school player to wait four years before he would become eligible to play in its league. The rule did not expressly state that a player had to attend college or place an age restriction on players entering the NBA, although clearly those were the intentions behind the rule. What the rule did in fact state was that "a player could not make himself available" to be drafted by a NBA team unless he waited fours years following his graduation from high school.
After competing in the Olympics and signing a contract with the Denver Rockets of the American Basketball Association in 1970, Haywood was drafted by Seattle of the NBA even though four years had not surpassed since his graduation from high school. As a result of Seattle signing Haywood before his college class graduated, the NBA threatened to disallow the contract and implement various punitive sanctions against the Seattle basketball club.
Haywood challenged this decision by commencing an antitrust action against the NBA that eventual went to the United States Supreme Court in 1971. As part of his claim against the NBA, Haywood argued that the conduct of the NBA was a "group boycott" and a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act [click here]. The central issue that had to be determined was whether the NBA draft policy was a restraint on trade and therefore was illegal in accordance with the Sherman Act.
The District Court, in Denver Rockets v. All-Pro Management, 325 F. Supp. 1049 (C.D. Calf. 1971) ruled in favor of Haywood and granted an injunction which allowed him to play in the NBA and prohibited the NBA from placing sanctions on Seattle. The District Court ruled in favor of Haywood since it felt that Haywood would suffer irreparable injury and his playing career would be dissipated since his physical skills and co-ordination would deteriorate from lack of high level competition if he was prohibited from continuing to play with the Seattle team.
Today, the effects of Haywood v. NBA are seem with greater frequency as a significant number of high school graduates and college attendees make themselves eligible for the NBA draft before completing four years in college. Therefore, despite Spencer Haywood's fine career as a professional basketball player, his greatest victory may have in fact come from a different court.