As shown on his Basketball-Reference page (and suggested by the photo above), Craig Hodges enjoyed some success with other teams before joining the Chicago Bulls early in the 1988-89 season; he was, in fact, a two-time league leader in three-point shooting percentage and a regular starter for the Milwaukee Bucks for a few seasons. Theoretically, he could have stuck around for at least a few more seasons after his time in Chicago ended in 1992. But as Hodges later recalled to NBC Sports, he was too vocal about certain social and political issues during the Bulls' White House visit following their 1992 NBA Finals victory. This, he stressed, allegedly led the NBA to blackball him from the league.
"When we won, I had a chance to go to the White House and I presented a letter to President [George H.W.] Bush and asked him to consider our issues like he considered foreign policy," Hodges told the outlet. "And for whatever reason, [after that] I was considered a persona non grata as far as the league was concerned."
Aside from going directly to the president with his concerns, Hodges purportedly rubbed people the wrong way by wearing a dashiki and eschewing the usual suit and tie for the visit. He didn't go into detail to NBC Sports about the issues he raised with Bush, but The New York Times wrote in 1996 that the letter he wrote to the president focused on the injustice African Americans were dealing with at the time. The publication also noted how Hodges had been calling out Black athletes who "failed to use their considerable wealth and influence to assist the poor and disenfranchised.”
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