Privileged & worthy
It’s possible new Nets coach Nash may be both
New Nets head coach Steve Nash was officially introduced on Wednesday, and he did not back down from the conversation around race.
Nash, a Hall of Fame point guard with zero experience either as a head or assistant coach, takes a highly coveted job in which he’ll coach Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and a talented Nets roster with championship aspirations. And he beat out several qualified Black candidates for the job, including the incumbent Jacque Vaughn — who will now serve as Nash’s lead assistant.
The pool of
Black candidates ranged both in experience and expertise: There were veteran coaching candidates (Mark Jackson, Alvin Gentry and Nate McMillan), a players’ coach like Tyronn Lue, and fresh, young candidates like Philadelphia assistant Ime Udoka and Dallas’ rising star Jamahl Mosley.
Nash admitted he leapfrogged many, more experienced coaches.
“Well, I did skip the line, frankly, but at the same time I think leading an NBA team for almost two decades is pretty unique,” Nash conceded on Wednesday.
“I have benefited from white privilege. Our society has a lot of ground to make up. I think as white people, we have to understand that we are served a privilege and a benefit by the color of our skin in our communities. And we have a long way to go to find equality and social and racial justice. So I hope that I’m a great ally to that cause.”
The cause is this: In an NBA with an 84% Black population, there are only five full-time Black head coaches — Cleveland’s J.B. Bickerstaff, Atlanta’s Lloyd Pierce, the Clippers’ Doc Rivers, Detroit’s Dwane Casey and Phoenix’s Monty Williams. Alvin Gentry and Nate McMillan were fired when their teams were eliminated from the Orlando bubble, and the Nets promoted Vaughn as interim coach after dismissing Kenny Atkinson.
Marks said it was a tough conversation to have with Vaughn, who assumed a leadership role shortly before the season came to a halt amid the coronavirus pandemic. Vaughn won over his players in the Orlando bubble, leading a battered Nets team to a 5-3 record, securing the East’s seventh seed. He prioritized a fasterpace offense and secured signature wins over both the Bucks and Clippers.
Vaughn’s players raved about him. They wanted him to stay — even after the Nets were steamrolled by the Raptors in the first round of the playoffs.
Nash said he’s sensitive to the goal of increasing the both the quality and quantity of coaching opportunities available to Black candidates. He can both say that and be a white man who accepts the league’s most coveted opening: to turn down such an opportunity would have been preposterous.
Nash also said, however, he isn’t sure his hire is an example of white privilege. He is a highly decorated point guard regarded as one of the best ever, dominating the on-court position most closely tethered to the head coach’s responsibilities.
He considers the hire more of a byproduct of his abilities on the floor — that if he wasn’t as good as a point guard, he wouldn’t have been considered. He also considers the hire a byproduct of relationships
that he’s forged, a 20-year conversation with Marks dating back to their time as teammates in Phoenix.
Both can be true: Nash can be both privileged and worthy. One thing is clear — he is very aware. He is aware the NBA was built on the backs of Black players, that without the Black athlete, this league would not be what it is today. He is aware that Black coaches are hardly afforded the same opportunity as their white counterparts.
Nash, like this league, is at the intersection of entertainment and social and racial justice and inequality. At the very least, he’s going to address it as best he can. “So I’m very sensitive to the cause and the goal. I’m not sure that this is an example that purely fits this conversation, but I own it and I understand why that’s important to talk about,” he said. “So I want to be here to fight for that as well. It’s interesting being such a supporter and ally of all that needs for equality, to be put in the middle of it in a sense because it’s something that’s near and dear to my heart, but I accept it, I want to be a part of the conversation and frankly I want to be a part of change going forward.”