Women attaining bigger roles in league, including two more as referees
NBA commissioner Adam Silver wants more women throughout the league. He’s getting his wish.
In recent days, two significant moves were made, with Kristi Toliver being added to Washington’s staff of assistant coaches, and Chasity Melvin getting hired as an assistant coach with Charlotte’s G League affiliate in Greensboro, N.C.
And Monday, two female referees made their regularseason debuts. They’re signs of progress. Few seem to notice, which also is not all bad.
Women are a becoming a bigger part of the league now than ever before. The hires of Toliver and Melvin were not overlooked; it just no longer seems like such an unusual thing to bring a woman into the fray of an NBA club, probably because the likes of San Antonio assistant Becky Hammon, former Sacramento assistant Nancy Lieberman, Dallas assistant Jenny Boucek, Clippers G League assistant Natalie Nakase and Memphis analyst Nicki Gross took care of the first wave of trailblazing.
“I think it’s great and I think it’s great for the NBA,” said Charlotte’s James Borrego, the league’s first Hispanic full-time coach. “It speaks to our league, the diversity, the openness, the inclusion and I’m proud to be part of that, part of a league that’s open to that. I’ve been around Becky Hammon for a number of years now. These are bright women that belong in our league.”
Certainly, there’s much more progress to be made, including in business offices around the league — as well as on the sidelines.
There’s never been a female NBA head coach, though Hammon — a longtime part of the staff in San Antonio, where Borrego was before taking the Charlotte job — seems on the cusp of breaking that glass ceiling. Only three women have been hired as full-time NBA referees, though Natalie Sago and Ashley Moyer-Gleich debuted Monday and are already highly respected by many peers.
They join the likes of Dee Kantner, Violet Palmer, Brenda Pantoja and stillactive Lauren Holtkamp as women to work regularseason games. Pantoja was a non-staff ref, and for now so are Sago and Moyer-Gleich.
Bulls
Chicago waived center Omer Asik, who hadn’t played for the Bulls this season. He was ruled out indefinitely in September with inflammatory arthritis. Asik’s $11.3 million salary for 2018-19 was fully guaranteed, and he is owed $3 million for next season as a partial guarantee. The Bulls would owe him the full $14.3 million unless a team claims him off waivers, which is unlikely.
Elsewhere
Former Syracuse recruit Darius Bazley, who will forgo college to prepare for the 2019 NBA draft, landed a job as an intern at New Balance. The New York Times reported Bazley, 18, signed in May with agent Rich Paul, who arranged for the 6-foot-9 forward from Cincinnati to work for the athletic equipment company for the first three months of 2019. Paul, who also has LeBron James, John Wall and Ben Simmons among his NBA clients, told the newspaper the internship is part of a multiyear shoe contract that will pay Bazley at least $1 million and up to $14 million if Bazley reaches performance incentives written into the contract. New Balance hasn’t marketed basketball shoes since the 1990s.