I guess. I heard an interesting comment on a podcast the other day: "Some players aren't good as coaches. Magic Johnson was a bad coach. Steve Kerr was a good coach." And I was thinking, hold on, you just said a black coach was bad and a white coach was good when there was a BIG BIG BIG difference between the rosters those guys coached. With the Warriors roster, Magic could've been a very good coach. And if Kerr was given the Knicks roster, he probably would've been fired after one year. It should be noted that Kerr was terrible as a GM, making one of the worst trades ever for the Suns (Marion for an old Shaq). I mean, when Luke Walton took over for Kerr during the 2015-16 season, the Warriors went 39-4. A much better stretch than Kerr ever coached them too. And then Kerr failed to coach them to a championship that year. Furthermore, Walton has not been successful as a coach for Lakers or Kings, jobs he probably wouldn't have gotten if it wasn't for that 39-4 stretch. Now, Nash gets a championship ready roster which a coach like David Vanterpool would kill for. Why not give Vanterpool a chance with that roster? Well, presumably it was Durant and Kyrie's decision so I guess it's their fault.
Also it's said that Nash is close with Nets ownership. The whole thing is more political and less merit based than it should be. There needs to be rules that give more people of color opportunities at head coaching jobs, especially in a sport dominated by black men. We see far too big of a discrepancy in the ratio of black assistant coaches to black head coaches. All of that said it's a fact, there have been more black men who have been given a chance to be a head coach in the NBA with no coaching experience than white men... I like that it's that way because far more black men play at the highest level than white men. That being said, again there is no way that Stephen A should have been pointing out that Nash had no experience, he should have just focused on the lack of equal opportunity in a league that likes to pride themselves on opportunity in regards to diversity.
It's the situation he was citing so it's the only ratio that matters but no I wouldn't say that 40 years is a small sample size and 9 out of 16 is obviously enough that he should have steered clear of talking about that specific phenomenon being an example of systemic racism. I mean we have millions of examples in this country and I'm sure more than a thousand examples in basketball to choose from that exemplify systemic racism but he chose an example that historically bucks the trend and has been very progressive in going beyond equal opportunity. Qualified black coaches don't have equal opportunity to be NBA head coaches, I'm agreeing with you and Stephen A about that but he just really needed to leave out the point that he continuously harped on that Nash had never coached before... because of the history it has no baring whatsoever and actually hurt the perceived validity of the rest of what he was saying.
Obviously I agree with Chuck, all of what he said is the exact reason that this thread was started. I mean, it's almost unbelievable that Stephen A didn't know that what he was saying was so far off. I know he knew that Doc and Derek Fisher had no previous coaching experience... I don't for one second believe that the idea of Bill Russell didn't flash in his mind leading up to his segment on TV. I mean he may not have known that 9 out of the 16 times this has happened in the last 40 years that it was a black man that kind of leapfrogged the system but he had to be aware that this wasn't unprecedented and that it had happened for multiple black men too. Some of me thinks this was the ultimate troll job. Maybe Stephen A wanted to talk about systemic racism, which needs to be talked about, and he thought, "Maybe if I say something completely off base to begin with and keep going back to that, this will put a bigger spotlight on the issue?" I don't know if he would be that calculated and still that stupid though because the only thing harping on Steve Nash's hiring did was give ammo to those who don't believe in systemic racism... which is why I'm so incredibly outraged with Stephen A Smith and obviously it's why Charles Barkley is too.
