Silver wants a female coach in the league...

[ShulaDon92]

She's got to be a genius. There will eventually be one. Silvers pushing for it.

[og15]

The biggest concern is getting a team of NBA players to accept being coached by a woman who obviously will never of had their experiences. Womens basketball is a completely different sport.

Becky Hammon would be the best choice but it would be so much easier for her to take over for a head coach she assistant coached for with most of the same players. Expecting her to go to a team of strangers is going to expose players biases in a big way.

Are there even any women coaching mens D1 college basketball? It needs to start there and with more AC positions in the NBA.

I can't imagine that being the biggest concern when there are male coaches who have never played any high level of basketball.

[sammo89]

I'm sure a perennial under .500 team would be willing to experiment with this idea for the potential ratings boost. Media would go crazy if she was successful

[FrodoFraggins]

The biggest concern is getting a team of NBA players to accept being coached by a woman who obviously will never of had their experiences. Womens basketball is a completely different sport.

Becky Hammon would be the best choice but it would be so much easier for her to take over for a head coach she assistant coached for with most of the same players. Expecting her to go to a team of strangers is going to expose players biases in a big way.

Are there even any women coaching mens D1 college basketball? It needs to start there and with more AC positions in the NBA.

I can't imagine that being the biggest concern when there are male coaches who have never played any high level of basketball.

Well I know Brad Stevens didn't get the respect of certain players due to it. He also coached D1 basketball first so there's that. If women aren't getting D1 mens jobs they are unlikely to just jump to the NBA.

[ankle420breaker]

This will make all the usual people big mad.

But there is no problem here despite their forthcoming efforts to create one.

The usual people are going to have a cow over this, which pretty much proves Silver's point.

Seems like all anyone is saying is that the job should be earned on merit and not simply awarded in the name of gender equality. It's not sexist to say that so quit acting like you're morally superior to "the usual people."

Sent from my SM-S901U using RealGM mobile app

[mixerball]

this should come naturally not being pushed just because

[celtics543]

I don't disagree with the fact that a woman could be a great basketball coach. I'm a numbers person though and I think it actually is very unsurprising that we haven't had a woman as the head coach of a team yet. How many women are head coaches of men's college teams? How many women are assistant coaches of men's college teams? That number is incredibly low. The number of women coaching in men's sports is very low overall.

So while I see no reason that a woman would be incapable of being an NBA head coach. I don't see a lot of women actually coaching men's basketball at this point at any level. Even at the high school level that I coach at I have never seen a woman on the bench for any other school. At some point it's just a numbers thing.

[The Explorer]

I'm sure a perennial under .500 team would be willing to experiment with this idea for the potential ratings boost. Media would go crazy if she was successful

If she performs poorly or gets into disputes with her star player, then what? Firing her would be a PR nightmare for the organization. The media firestorm would blame her firing on unequal opportunity, the fact that she's a woman, etc. I don't think any franchise would want to touch that.

[hippesthippo]

What he actually said:

Read on Twitter

"If I were out looking to hire a coach right now, I'd say there's a market irregularity, there's clearly a bias in the system against women," Silver said. "Now part of it is there's no shortcuts to developing a new pool of candidates, and that's what we're going through now. That's I think why you're seeing, you know, seven female assistants because still you want people to be developed, to come up the ranks, to sort of learn the profession, learn it in the assistant ranks and then work their way up.

"But so, I don't want to put a precise number on it. I'd say, I would be hugely disappointed if, certainly, in five years, we haven't seen our first female head coach in the NBA."

If they were being honest Journalists they'd at least use an ellipses to indicate the missing text. Straight up click-bait.

[hippesthippo]

I'm sure a perennial under .500 team would be willing to experiment with this idea for the potential ratings boost. Media would go crazy if she was successful

If she performs poorly or gets into disputes with her star player, then what? Firing her would be a PR nightmare for the organization. The media firestorm would blame her firing on unequal opportunity, the fact that she's a woman, etc. I don't think any franchise would want to touch that.

You just have to treat them the same as you would any other coach and not worry about it. After all, you were the team that actually gave it a chance because you saw them as the most qualified candidate. Worst case, that's a neutral PR situation.

I work in a heavily male dominated field. I've come across a few woman who have found success with it over the years and I've found that the only difference between them and those who were unsuccessful was that they were lucky and received the same training that a similar white male would. Most woman don't get the same equal training or education because of an ingrained belief that "woman don't belong in this field."

It really does start at the bottom.

[ellobo]

Pat Summitt was asked the coach the men's team at Tennessee multiple times and turned it down, saying, "I wouldn’t want people to think I looked at the men’s game as a step up.”

For those who don't know, she was the first college coach to win 1000 games (her overall record was 1098-208). In the 30 years that the NCAA had a women's tournament during her career (she coached 38 years, but the NCAA has only had a women's tournament since 1982), she won 8 championships and went to the Final Four 18 times. She never had a losing season or missed the NCAA tournament, and made it to at least the Sweet 16 every year except one.

She retired at only 59 years old due to early onset Alzheimer's. When she died in 2016 at age 64, former Tennessee men's player, Brian Williams posted a story on social media about the time she took over men's practice because she didn't like the way the players were practicing:

“We was goofing around and Pat was watching,” Williams wrote. “She got fed up and threw the ball, and everyone stopped. She said, ‘Run sprints, and run them fast.’”

Tennessee’s players then looked at [men's head coach Bruce] Pearl as if to suggest, "Is she serious?"

“He looked back at us and walked away and sat down, and Pat ran the rest of practice,” Williams said. “I remember I threw up twice that day.”

“The amount of respect we had for her was unmatched, and the lives she created for thousands will never go unnoticed,” Williams wrote. “Thanks for everything, Pat.”

Peyton Manning who went to college at Tennessee, said of her:

"People say she could have coached a men's team. She could have coached a football team."

But she wouldn't have been "qualified" to coach an NBA team?

[sammo89]

I'm sure a perennial under .500 team would be willing to experiment with this idea for the potential ratings boost. Media would go crazy if she was successful

If she performs poorly or gets into disputes with her star player, then what? Firing her would be a PR nightmare for the organization. The media firestorm would blame her firing on unequal opportunity, the fact that she's a woman, etc. I don't think any franchise would want to touch that.

That's why I said it has to be a losing team that takes the risk. They can stomach the L if it goes south, but if it goes well, the ratings upside would be tremendous. Imagine right now if the Kings were winning with a female coach... CNN, NYTimes, Disney and Netflix would give them absurd amounts of airtime, guaranteed

[Inspektor1312]

It would definitely be a great PR move by the league.

[MrGoat]

I'm sure a perennial under .500 team would be willing to experiment with this idea for the potential ratings boost. Media would go crazy if she was successful

Honestly I'm more surprised a team hasn't tried it for the inevitable reffing boost they would get