Shams: Raptors promote Brittini Donaldson to assistant coach

[Mikistan]

Guess they chose not to continue the double letter pattern of NN, SS, and FF.


On a serious note, congrats to her. An analytics specialist is definitely a huge upgrade over whatever Castleberry did. Is there a max number of assistant coaches? Seems like we have like 8 or 9, with a 15 man roster. Meanwhile the NHL has 3 assistant coaches with a 23 man roster

Her analytics background: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/brittnidonaldson

(I didn't linkedin stalk - first link on google)

To be fair, the nba is a bit far behind on this.

They can easily go the route of the NFL, have offensive and defensive coordinators up top, with live statistics linked to IBM Watson and an earpiece to the head coach.
Everytime the opposing team makes a substitution you can have real time 3,4 man and 5man unit statistics updating, have offensive and defensive coordinators giving input on statistical best options or substitutions to counter, have live cameras mapping plays and comparing to catalogues of scouting videos of opponent offensive or defensive schemes.

Instead we just have a head coach yelling and walking up and down the sideline.

Dated.

Um....no.

The reason why that works in the NFL is that the game consists of a series of individual plays with breaks between them. And it uses separate personnel for offense and defense, so after each series, there is an opportunity to review and discuss.

Basketball consists of possessions that go back and forth in a continuous manner with minimal breaks. Players are constantly moving and making adjustments on the fly. You can't have 3 or 4 other people calling things out or it will devolve into chaos.

There are 53 players on an NFL team. There are three completely different units, each of which has a different mix of packages and personnel that they use, meaning there are hundreds of different potential combinations. You need multiple coaches just to keep track of it.

There are 12 players on an NBA team, 8 of which play the vast majority of the minutes. Most teams run variations on a dozen or so different plays and ideally use only about 10-15 different lineup combinations in any given game. It is easily something one person with two assistants can manage.

um... no.

[Metallikid]

Women will never play in the NBA (minus any future rare exceptions), but theres ZERO reason they shouldn't be involved with managing in any capacity. Whether she ends up being good or not at what she does, this is a step in the right directions.

I'm pretty certain they made sure that she's already good at what she does or else she wouldn't have been hired. It would be an awful decision if they gave it to her in part because she's female.

[FreshyFlames]

Am I allowed to point out that she's pretty or will I get flamed for objectifying women?

Spoiler:

And here I was thinking it was always teens doing this type of thing thanks for that.

Got it, my bad. Let's get back to discussing Lowry's booty and Ibaka's man meat

You're all a bunch of weirdos

[Red_Claw]

Women will never play in the NBA (minus any future rare exceptions), but theres ZERO reason they shouldn't be involved with managing in any capacity. Whether she ends up being good or not at what she does, this is a step in the right directions.

I'm pretty certain they made sure that she's already good at what she does or else she wouldn't have been hired. It would be an awful decision if they gave it to her in part because she's female.

Not the point im making...

All im saying is women deserve the same opportunity in positions they are physically equal. And im not trying to minimize women by saying that. I think the downfall of men are their ego and infinite masculinity. Women have advantages to men that are more than just birthing and its about time society starts taking advantage of them.

[navyblue]

Women will never play in the NBA (minus any future rare exceptions), but theres ZERO reason they shouldn't be involved with managing in any capacity. Whether she ends up being good or not at what she does, this is a step in the right directions.

I'm pretty certain they made sure that she's already good at what she does or else she wouldn't have been hired. It would be an awful decision if they gave it to her in part because she's female.

Not the point im making...

All im saying is women deserve the same opportunity in positions they are physically equal. And im not trying to minimize women by saying that. I think the downfall of men are their ego and infinite masculinity. Women have advantages to men that are more than just birthing and its about time society starts taking advantage of them.

masai in a podcat with woj after the kawhi trade. woj asked him for a tip for success or something like that, he masai said "hire more women"

edit

it wanst woj but bill simmons

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/basketball/she-the-north-ujiri-says-raptors-have-benefited-from-hiring-more-women/article36917769/

The Raptors hired women for several key roles this past off-season, and the 47-year-old Ujiri summed it up matter-of-factly on a recent Bill Simmons podcast when he said "Hire women." But if the makeup of Toronto's NBA franchise is more female than most, it happened organically rather than by design, Ujiri stressed.

"It works here for us, because it's worked for me. Hire women. I said that because it's working for us," Ujiri said in a phone interview this week. "It's inclusion, it's opportunity, it's diversity. It just works here. Toronto speaks that. Our organization speaks that. So, it's not the same everywhere, but I'm happy that it's like that here."

Dubbed "She The North," the Raptors' celebration brought together hundreds of women in sports, from player agents to coaches, physicians, and journalists, at the team's Biosteel Centre practice facility. Ujiri told the crowd he'd love to see a female general manager in the NBA.

[Oakville_Raptor]

Am I allowed to point out that she's pretty or will I get flamed for objectifying women?

Raps adding some eye candy to the bench lol

[Tofubeque]

I'd love to talk some analytics with her...

...because she probably has a wealth of knowledge and inside perspective on the Raptors. Get your mind out of the gutter!

[kwajo]

Am I allowed to point out that she's pretty or will I get flamed for objectifying women?

Raps adding some eye candy to the bench lol

Uhhh, Big Cat was already taking care of that

But hey, she sings covers of Canadian legends, so I'm a fan

Watch on YouTube

[will]

Nice!

[Mikistan]

Am I allowed to point out that she's pretty or will I get flamed for objectifying women?

Raps adding some eye candy to the bench lol

Uhhh, Big Cat was already taking care of that

But hey, she sings covers of Canadian legends, so I'm a fan

Watch on YouTube

Nick Nurse low-key putting together a band, along with a coaching staff...

Also, that was a really good cover!

[Ganjamayne]

Am I allowed to point out that she's pretty or will I get flamed for objectifying women?

If this was Reddit you'd be downvoted -70 by now lmao

[Westside Gunn]

can anyone comment on the field of analytics. right now i couldve sworn every other person i meet is taking some big data course or training. is it all hype that schools are cashing in on or legit?

[And1Skip]

I'm curious what her exact role would be on the back row of the bench. Eric Khoury was presumably her boss and he was already an assistant coach at the back row. Does it mean he simply needs more help on that front?

[tor1234567]

We should be aggressively targeting Becky Hammon too. If we had an all female coaching staff maybe we could keep our FA's.

Why?

Just because she's a woman?

I'd rather go the analytics route like we just did with this hiring of Brittini Donaldson. We've found a ton of success hiring people like this in our scouting and Assistant GM roles. I'd stick to that strategy.

[Hero_Panda]

Regardless of their race and gender, I trust Masai and co hire great people at their positions.
They could bring a dog in as assistant GM and i would still think Macau knows what he's doing.

[tor1234567]

can anyone comment on the field of analytics. right now i couldve sworn every other person i meet is taking some big data course or training. is it all hype that schools are cashing in on or legit?

Executives and Directors are largely just ambitious folks who have little to no subject matter expertise in anything.

They also generally do not make good decisions, even if the data is right in front of them.

Being able to turn that raw data (even using a simple program like Excel) can help people make better decisions.

For example, DeRozan was the leading scorer of a top Eastern Conference team for years. As a result, he was a multi-year All-star (ahead of Lowry).

However, upon closer inspection, DeRozan's points are largely against sub-500 teams (during the regular season) AND he also gives up about 40 points per game.

Some Analytics guy showed this to Masai, he spit out his African coffee, yelled out F**k DeRozyn, and traded Demar the first chance he could.

[ThatClockWork]

Looking forward to hearing about how well she does !

[WuTang_OG]

The dummies on this board will call this "weird"

[AbC?]

Some background on her. Looks like a great addition to the bench.

“I got to Toronto two years ago and even then basketball just wasn’t on anybody’s radar. We were good, but the culture up here is hockey, curling and soccer is even big. You just don’t see a lot of basketball on T.V. or at the youth level so to kind of see that culture shift and see nearly 4 million people at the parade was pretty special. When I was walking to work today there were a bunch of kids outside playing basketball and you can feel there’s a buzz in the city about the sport.

“From where I come from, basketball was such a huge part of my life, so to be able to give that back is really cool.”

Yeesh, huge stretch from her here.

[KootenayRapFan]

Am I allowed to point out that she's pretty or will I get flamed for objectifying women?

How dare you be a hetero man!!!