Photo credits: Dan Goshtigian/The Boston Globe
As of June 2022, there are 15 teams in the NBA, which have black head coaches – that amounts to 50 percent of the whole league.
Adam Silver, the NBA Commissioner, lauded the league’s decision-making entities within each team’s ownership and management division. Silver said he looked forward to the day in America when someone’s race or ethnicity did not matter to the news media once they were hired in a vital leadership position within the NBA’s ranks.
“At the same time, while I’m particularly proud of those numbers and roughly 50% of our head coaches are Black now, the goal is that that’s not newsworthy and that when people are hired, their first reaction isn’t the color of their skin,” Silver said in a statement according to Sports Illustrated Magazine.
“I don’t want to be naive either, though, because I know that what we do in this league is important symbolically, not just for sports but for other industries, and people watch us all around the world,” he went on to say.
Fifty-six years ago, Bill Russell, a former center who played for the Boston Celtics NBA franchise, broke the color barrier in the coaching category when he was tapped to help lead on-court operations. The NBA is also starting to turn the racial tide when it comes to leadership in its front offices.
According to the Bleacher Report, 20 percent of the general managers throughout the NBA’s 30 teams are black.
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