The NBA is arguably the most progressive professional major sports league, and commissioner Adam Silver wants to make progress in one area that has yet to change: he wants a woman to become an NBA head coach.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver told ESPN he believes there will be a female head coach in his league, and he wants it to happen “sooner rather than later.”
“There definitely will,” Silver said when asked about a woman becoming an NBA head coach. “And I think it is on me to sort of ensure that it happens sooner rather than later.”
Silver also said that he plans to hire women as the league expands its group of referees, with only one woman official currently in the NBA. Silver also said he wants to hire an international referee.
Former WNBA star Becky Hammon and NCAA legend Nancy Lieberman are the only women coaching in the NBA, Hammon as an assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs and Lieberman with the Sacramento Kings. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has been effusive in his praise for Hammon.
“I hired her because she was in my coaches meetings for an entire year because she was injured,” Popovich said. “She’s got opinions and solid notions about basketball. Obviously, she was a great player. As a point guard, she’s a leader, she’s fiery, she’s got intelligence, and our guys just respected the heck out of her, so she’s coaching with us, she’s running drills. That’s why we made her a full-time coach and gave her the opportunity to coach at summer league.”
Hammon was the head coach of the Spurs’ summer league team in 2015, and led the team to the summer league title.
Clearly, women can coach men’s basketball just as well as men can. The only thing stopping it from happening is biases and long-held norms within the NBA. As long as Silver is pushing for teams to hire women, it should happen eventually.
[ESPN]
