To NBA coaches, racial equality is a priority of restart
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Dallas’ Rick Carlisle now starts each interview session by reading from a calendar that highlights something that happened on that day in the country’s racial history. Toronto’s Nick Nurse is often wearing shirts to practice proclaiming that Black Lives Matter. Orlando’s Steve Clifford, in lieu of prepractice film, showed his team a documentary on the life of John Lewis, the congressman and civil rights icon who died Friday.
While NBA players are using the season restart to demand change, coaches in the league are not making them walk down that path alone.
Coaches around the NBA — where most players are Black and most coaches are white — have been active participants in the demand societal change around the league. The demands became a flash point when George Floyd, a handcuffed Black man, died when a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes.
“I think it’s just understanding the moment and the movement that is taking place,” said Atlanta coach Lloyd Pierce, who is Black. “That’s what all our coaches are doing, and as white coaches, they’re no fools . ... If we’re going to ask for others to be empathetic, I think we all have to be empathetic.”
Pierce isn’t at the NBA restart at Walt Disney World — the Hawks, as well as the Warriors, aren’t among the 22 teams still playing this season — but he’s been active on regular leaguewide coaches Zoom calls and leads a committee of coaches tasked with how those in the NBA can best aid the societalchange movement.
He also helped get someone to coach the coaches.
Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, an NBA community partner, and is someone who has spent 30 years pushing for social justice. He was scheduled to meet with the NBA’s coaches over a Zoom call for a halfhour a few weeks ago. The call went more than three times that long, and from there a running dialogue was born.
“It was mesmerizing,” Carlisle said of that initial call. “It was an education in itself.”
It’s the calendar created by Stevenson’s organization that Carlisle reads from each day. The impact by what Stevenson said to coaches that first night has continued to resonate.
“You have to believe things you haven’t seen,” Stevenson said. “You have to have hope that we can turn this moment into something more than a moment. I mean, hopelessness is the enemy of justice and injustice prevails where hopelessness persists. And if NBA coaches believe that and if NBA players believe that, then fans can believe it too.”
Stevenson has been lauded by virtually all the league’s coaches in recent weeks. In a league where a handful of coaches — Golden State’s Steve Kerr and San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich, most notably — are not shy about sharing political views publicly, this moment has driven other coaches to use their voices as well.
The NBA got permission to make the new documentary “John Lewis: Good Trouble,” directed by San Francisco filmmaker Dawn Porter, available to all head and assistant coaches this week, and several teams — including the Magic, at Clifford’s request — watched it. It was also available as a featured movie on the curated channel within the hotels.
Players are at Disney to compete for a championship, though the broader societal issues have not diminished since they arrived.
Denver’s Jerami Grant took five questions in an interview last week and all his answers, no matter the topic, revolved around a demand for arrests in the killing of Breonna Taylor. Philadelphia’s Tobias Harris took a similar tactic days later, and the Los Angeles Clippers’ Paul George did after his team’s scrimmage Wednesday.
Houston’s Russell Westbrook has a clothing line that will display socialjustice messaging, and most players will wear jerseys with similar thoughts printed on the back.
At Disney, the phrase “Black Lives Matter” is painted on the courts for games. If the players take an action on the court during games, such as kneeling, coaches reportedly have agreed to do the same.
“It’s a seminal moment, in the sense that we have an opportunity to do something transformative if we have the courage,” Popovich said. “And as with many things in today’s world, interest wanes pretty quickly no matter what the topic. … So, the league, the players, the coaches, staff, everybody is very committed to keeping it upfront in everybody’s consciousness, even though everybody’s excited to go play. This is a great opportunity.”