If Bill Walton could have a conversation with Martin Luther King Jr., the former NBA superstar said Monday that he would ask three questions.

"Where do we go to find the courage?" Walton said. "Where do we go to find the light? When you were a young man, Dr. King, what was it in your life that happened to you that showed you the path?"

Walton shared a stage with the NBA's first African-American general manager, Wayne Embry, and modern basketball stars Chris Bosh and Candace Parker on Monday before the Grizzlies and Pelicans tipped off in the annual MLK Day celebration game.

The four basketball icons received the National Civil Rights Museum Sports Legacy Award for their contributions to human and civil rights.

Hundreds of spectators filled the Grizzlies' practice facility inside FedExForum to hear the four share their experiences and their hopes for the future.

"I hope at some point that there's two or three women sitting up here," said Parker, the UT Lady Vols alum and a two-time WNBA MVP. "That's what I hope. As an African-American woman raising a daughter, my definition of what a leader and role model looked like didn't always look like myself. Yes, you have to be leaders for other women. But we can be leaders for young boys and men as well."

Cheers came from the audience during Parker's answer.

"Those are the challenges right now: just kind of finding that place and finding your voice," she said. "Be OK with leaders looking different, with people of color doing different jobs as well. The stereotypes of 2019 still are there and we continue to have to break those down."

Bosh, a former star with the Raptors and Miami Heat, used some of his time with the microphone to emphasize the importance of education.

"If a guy scores twenty points, thirty points in a high school game, he gets praise," Bosh said. "That's wonderful. It's these brilliant kids all over the world that don't get any recognition. The future doctors and lawyers of the world don't get any recognition."

Embry, 81, is a five-time NBA All-Star and member of the Milwaukee Bucks' 1968 NBA championship team.

He became the general manager of the Bucks in 1972, holding that title until 1979. Embry later won NBA Executive of the Year twice as general manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers from 1986 to 1999. He also worked as GM of the Raptors in 2006 and remains a senior basketball adviser for the franchise.

"This keeps Dr. King's legacy alive," Embry said of the award.

The panel discussion, led by Grizzlies TV play-by-play voice Pete Pranica, is called Earl Lloyd Sports Legacy Symposium.

Lloyd became the first African-American to play in an NBA game in 1950. Embry entered the league in 1958 and has been active in it ever since.

"I was just sitting here thinking, the world we need today, judge me by the content of my character and not by the color of my skin," Embry said, reciting the famous words of King. "Those words resonate loud and clear with me."

Reach Grizzlies beat writer David Cobb at david.cobb@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @DavidWCobb.

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