A version of this story about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Barack Obama first appeared in the Down to the Wire: Drama issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar knows all about tough competition, but the basketball legend may be facing a fiercer foe than even Wilt Chamberlain or Julius Erving in this year’s Emmy race. And for that, he can thank the Outstanding Narrator category, which in its nine-year history has found an array of formidable voices going head-to-head: Sterling K. Brown over Anthony Hopkins, Meryl Streep over Laurence Fishburne and Ewan McGregor, Jeremy Irons over Daniel Craig and Whoopi Goldberg, David Attenborough over Chiwetel Ejiofor one year and over Morgan Freeman and Carl Reiner the next …
This year, Abdul-Jabbar is nominated for the second time for the History series “Black Patriots,” the first coming two years ago when he lost to Attenborough.