Coaching boxes got diverse in offseason
The NBA coaching box is looking far more diverse these days.
When the season starts next week, there will be the league’s first head coach born and raised outside North America and the first Hispanic American full-time head coach. And there’s a real chance that before long, someone like Becky Hammon could become the first woman to lead a NBA club.
In a league in which minorities make up the overwhelming majority of players on the floor, there’s still a movement to make those same diverse strides in who is calling the shots on the sideline.
“The league is starting to move in a direction with the coaches of being more diverse,” said Memphis head coach J.B. Bickerstaff, whose father also was a head coach in the NBA. “And it’s just about opportunity, and everybody wants an equal playing field. And I think when you get an equal playing field, you know people from all backgrounds can rise to the occasion.”
That’s what the Phoenix Suns believed when they hired Igor Kokoskov, a native of Serbia, and the Charlotte Hornets did when they tabbed James Borrego — the league’s first full-time Hispanic coach. Borrego’s seat on the front row of the Spurs’ bench was inherited by Hammon after she was promoted by San Antonio head coach Gregg Popovich — after a summer where Hammon was a candidate to take the top job in Milwaukee.
Popovich’s team has long been at the forefront of finding players in places far outside the U.S. and it’s no surprise he has thought outside the box to grow his coaching tree. Besides employing Borrego and Hammon last season, his top assistant is Italian Ettore Messina. Brett Brown had been coaching for nearly two decades in Australia before Popovich hired the 76ers’ current head coach for his staff.
“It’s got nothing to do with quotas or anything like that, just people who are qualified for jobs and getting the opportunity,” Popovich said. “So, there are no ceilings for anybody based on race or religion or gender or anything like that.”
Nearly a third of the league’s teams changed coaches, providing opportunities for successful head coaches to quickly land with new teams (Mike Budenholzer, Milwaukee; Dwane Casey, Detroit; David Fizdale, New York; Steve Clifford, Orlando), assistants a shot at finally running a club (Kokoskov, Phoenix; Nick Nurse, Toronto; Lloyd Pierce, Atlanta), and second chances to coaches who had only brief stints at the top (Bickerstaff and Borrego).
Though they come from such varying backgrounds, they are family. Coaches support each other even while sometimes competing with each other for jobs. Fizdale received calls from coaches around the league when he was fired early last season in Memphis, and he made a similar call to Jeff Hornacek when he was let go by the Knicks.
“Because we’re a fraternity,” Fizdale said. “We really do take pride in that in the NBA, that we look out for each other and stay connected with each other and when I got fired, they all reached out to me the same way. And it’s heartfelt because there are only 30 of these.”