In the past three years, more black head coaches in the NBA have been fired than ever before. By the time all the vacancies were filled there were only seven left in the entire NBA. Out of the thirty teams, that's a huge decrease from the previous fourteen total black head coaches on opening night in 2012. From 2001 to 2014, the NBA has averaged about eleven black head coaches, marking the most diverse era in league history. So why all of a sudden are so many black head coaches being fired? And why has this decline gone literally unnoticed?
Beck, Howard. (2015). Where Are All the Black NBA Coaches? Examining a Sudden, Silent Disappearance. Bleacher Report.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2584463-where-are-all-the-black-nba-coaches-examining-a-sudden-silent-disappearance
so what is the answer? Why this sudden decrease?
ReplyDeleteMost people believe that this trend is a fluke, and numbers will even out in the next few years or so, but just the other day the LA Lakers head coach Byron Scott was replaced with Luke Walton so the trend is still getting worse! My belief is that as the NBA was in the spotlight years ago they felt it was necessary to diversify their staff, but now I feel like people don't even notice that the NBA has become institutionally racist. White GMs throughout the league tend to hire staff who are like them; white males. Its a classic example of white privilege and I think its sort of trickle down discrimination. As the GMs white whites, those guys hire whites, and its a never ending cycle. Someone needs to step in and call out the NBA because there are so many black coaches trying to land these jobs too. Its unfair that white guys are landing them all even though the black guys have just as much experience playing and coaching the game. Luke Walton was interim head coach for the GS Warriors and they went 39-4 so he has a great resume, but its not right that the Lakers just tossed aside Byron Scott. Yeah he hasn't gotten the wins, but Kobe just retired, so things probably would have turned around for them. The Lakers didn't even give him a chance though. I read a statistic which said white head coaches are given a third of the time longer to prove themselves before they are let go. That is the difference between getting fired in the middle of the season and the middle of the off-season.
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