NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was hospitalized after breaking his hip.
As TMZ reported, the 76-year-old fell at a concert in Los Angeles and suffered a shattered body.
Paramedics took Abdul-Jabbar to the emergency room, and while his condition was not disclosed, his representative Deborah Morales told TMZ that the Hall of Famer was being cared for by the “amazing medical team and doctors at UCLA Hospital.”
Neither the location of the concert nor the performer have been identified.
This medical emergency comes three years after Abdul-Jabbar announced he had beaten prostate cancer.
NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was hospitalized after breaking his hip
Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA's second all-time leading scorer after LeBron James, has been synonymous with basketball since his high school days in New York City.
The country's top recruit, Lew Alcindor, as he was then known, chose UCLA, where he won a national title in each of his three seasons.
He then won an NBA crown with the Milwaukee Bucks alongside Oscar Robertson before winning four more with Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers.
Among his many duties, Abdul-Jabbar now serves as a health ambassador for his alma mater, UCLA, because he wanted to reach into African-American communities to ensure they received adequate medical care.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was known for his skyhook in the NBA after his NCAA career at UCLA
For Abdul-Jabbar, a longtime civil rights activist, the issue is nothing new. Health care inequality is inextricably linked to other forms of racism in the United States that date back centuries.
And the more he encounters, Abdul-Jabbar wrote in 2020, the more it feels like an endless cycle.
“It's like the black community is trapped in Groundhog Day, where every day we fight racism, prove it exists, see progress, and then wake up the next day with the same obstacles,” he concluded. “In the film, Bill Murray escaped the cycle by becoming selfless and caring more about the needs of others than his greedy desires.” This is how America will escape this self-destructive behavior.
“The future of justice for Black Americans begins with physical and mental health, and as long as they are at the back of the line for services, there can be no real justice.” Black lives must matter in every aspect of American society should thrive.”