In what has been a difficult year for the world and the Toronto Raptors because of COVID-19, the troubles were exacerbated by racial inequality. It’s a subject that nearly derailed the restart of the NBA season, but the Raptors are an example of how to be in these turbulent times.
The Toronto Raptors lost a member of their team this week in assistant coach Nate Bjorkgren. After two seasons as a head coach with the Phoenix Suns, Nate Bjorkgren spent the last two seasons with the Toronto Raptors.
It was announced recently that he was granted the head-coaching position with the Toronto Raptors’ Conference rivals, the Indiana Pacers. He is due well-wishes and congratulations, but it is another decision by NBA franchises to hire a head coach who is not of African-American descent that is troubling.
The year 2020 will be remembered for its introduction to the world of a pandemic named COVID-19 and as a spring and summer of racial discontent with black Americans’ feeling like they are worthless members of their society. Protests broke out everywhere, with the Black Lives Matter movement taking center stage in calling out racial injustice.
The NBA tried to do its part, considering their African American players make up about 81 percent of their 30 franchises’ rosters by painting “Black Lives Matter” on the Florida Bubble court and allowing players to wear social messages on their jerseys.
However, the political unrest was heightened as the police brutality continued, and contentious slayings of black citizens George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were followed by Jacob Blake, who was shot seven times by police in the back. NBA playoff games were canceled, delaying the Toronto Raptors vs. Boston Celtics second-round playoff series.
Since then, much of North American life has been scrutinized concerning marginalized people and communities. The hiring practices of the NBA and sports leagues have not escaped the intense glare of this scrutiny.
Nate Bjorkgren’s hiring this week by the Indiana Pacers is an affirmation for Raptors nation and its fan base that the team does things the right way, and its time the rest of the NBA follows the Toronto Raptors lead.
The hiring of African Americans as head-coaches
The Toronto Raptors have been entertaining basketball fans since their inception in 1995. In those 25 years, nine men have coached the franchise, including current head-coach Nick Nurse, and five of the nine have been African Americans. In other words, 55 percent of the time, the Raptors have hired an African American when they need to fill that job.
Further, it’s not as if it hurts a franchise either. Sam Mitchell and Dwane Casey have won coach of the year awards while employed with the Toronto Raptors. Along with Butch Carter and Lenny Wilkins, they have led the Toronto Raptors into the NBA playoffs.
This year, including a mid-season coaching change by the Cleveland Cavaliers, the NBA had/has 10 openings for head-coach. There are two franchises, the OKC Thunder and Houston Rockets, which have yet to fill their openings, and three of the other eight teams have hired an African American as head-coach.
This means 37.5 percent of the head-coach openings so far this off-season has been filled with African Americans. With the racial tension this year, there is a focus on this perceived lack of hirings. It becomes more concerning when the NBA employs 403 black players out of its total of 497.
The argument is about representation. Many assistant and head-coaches were former players. However, out of 30 NBA Franchises, there are currently only five head-coaches that represent the player population. The goal is equality, and as newly crowned Philadelphia 76ers head-coach, Doc Rivers, stated in an interview this summer:
“It’s really so sad. I should be just a coach.”
He’s right; his race’s color descriptor should not be required just that he is a basketball coach. The NBA could do better just as the Toronto Raptors have shown it can be done.
Executive/managerial hirings
At the managerial/executive level of running a basketball team, the Toronto Raptors have historically done a good job providing black people opportunities. It begins with the first-ever general manager, in 1995, employed by the team in one Isiah Thomas, a former great point guard associated with the Detroit Pistons.
Under Isiah Thomas, the Toronto Raptors drafted exciting and highly talented players like Damon Stoudemire, Marcus Camby, and Tracy McGrady. After Isiah Thomas, the Raptors have been managed by Wayne Embry, and he remains a long-time senior advisor for the Raptors. Embry, like Thomas, is a former player from the late 1950’s-1969.
The current seven-year run in playoff competition has been built mostly by Masai Ujiri, the president of basketball operations in Toronto. Ujiri turned the Toronto Raptors into an NBA Champion last year without a lottery pick, an expected franchise player (Kawhi Leonard was not a lottery pick), on the roster.
However, there are currently just seven black general managers in the league as for the NBA itself. They are Elton Brand (Philadelphia), Kolby Altman (Cleveland), James Jones(Phoenix), and Scott Perry (New York), Troy Weaver (Detroit), Trajan Langdon (New Orleans), and Calvin Booth (Denver). In an article by Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated, he quoted a black NBA executive anonymously who stated:
The NBA had 108 players representing 38 international countries, so it is fair to say the league has a diverse makeup in the player ranks. However, that diversity has yet to be fully embraced at either the coaching or management level. Once again, the league could take a cue from the Toronto Raptors.
Female hirings
Female hirings in the NBA are not exactly racial inequality, but it is adjacent, and discrimination is discrimination. It’s long been a problem in sports with female reporters not wanted around locker rooms or treated in derogatory ways because they are women.
Admittedly, this is one area that the NBA is not necessarily doing poorly with, but improvements could be made. For example, the first female referees, Violet Palmer and Dee Kanter, were hired in 1997. This past season there were four female referees in the NBA out of a union made up of 70 members.
At the coaching ranks, 11 women are holding down assistant coaching roles in the NBA. Just over six years ago, the San Antonio Spurs hired the first female assistant coach who was Becky Hammond.
With no disrespect of the talents and basketball IQ that were and are the great Steve Nash, it is a plausible question to ponder how or why he was more qualified for the New Jersey head-coaching spot than Becky Hammond or even a Marc Jackson.
Ultimately, the Toronto Raptors under Masai Ujiri’s leadership have made hiring women in prominent roles in the organization. Ujiri hired this past summer Shelby Weaver (manager of player development), Brittni Donaldson (data analyst), Amanda Joaquim (physiotherapist), and Jennifer Quinn (director of communications).
According to Masai Ujiri:
Whether it’s hiring quality players, developing talent, and allowing qualified people to flourish, the Toronto Raptors do things the right way. The rest of the league needs to study the Toronto Raptors and learn that a classy organization can be diverse and progressive but successful all the same.