A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here.

What: “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel”

Where: HBO, tonight, 10-11

*

The lead story on the latest edition of “Real Sports” is about Spencer Haywood and the rule (formerly known as the hardship rule) that allows players to leave college early, or skip it all together, and play in the NBA. Before 1971, the NBA required all players to complete four years of college eligibility.

The angle of the piece reported by Armen Keteyian is that Haywood is a forgotten hero who is shunned by the people he helped the most, the black NBA players.

“I never expected it from the black athletes, and I can’t seem to get over that,” Haywood tells Keteyian. “My biggest rejection was Shaquille O’Neal. This was early, when he first came into the league. I was so enthused about telling him what I did. And he didn’t even let me elaborate. He just looked at me and said, ‘No you did not.’ ”

Keteyian and producer Nick Dolin do a nice job of telling the Haywood story and how he left left the cotton fields of Mississippi at age 15, went to Detroit, became a high school superstar and how it came about that, at 20, he took on the NBA in a case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

In Los Angeles, Haywood might be best remembered for his one partial season with the Lakers, 1980. Addicted to cocaine, he passed out in practice and was kicked off the team. His career ended a few years later when he was cut by the Detroit Pistons. Haywood shows Keteyian the bridge from which he contemplated jumping.

Haywood has now been sober for 15 years and owns an auto supply company in Detroit.

Other stories on this edition of “Real Sports”: a look at betting on college sports and a bill proposed by Sen. John McCain to have it banned, an excellent profile of Andre Agassi by Mary Carillo, and a probe of baseball’s drafting of players from the Dominican Republic.