NBA Commissioner Adam Silver Says ‘There Definitely Will’ Be a Female NBA Coach
The topic of if and when a woman will become a head coach for an NBA team has been in the news recently (thanks largely to sports talk host Mike Francesa‘s controversial stance that a woman could not and should not coach in the league.)
In an interview with ESPN, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was asked whether a woman will be charged with leading an NBA team someday.
“There definitely will,” Silver said. “And I think it is on me to sort of ensure that it happens sooner rather than later.”
No team in any of the four major male professional sports leagues in the U.S. has ever had a female coach. Basketball is widely considered to be the sport most likely to break the barrier — largely because of the presence of Becky Hammon, an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs. Hammon reportedly turned down an offer to coach the University of Florida women’s team in order to potentially remain a candidate to take over the Spurs when longtime head coach Gregg Popovich moves on.
In response to a question about Francesa’s comment that Hammon or another woman couldn’t coach on the NBA level, Popovich said it was “nonsense.”
The NBA Commissioner seems to agree:
(W)hen it comes to coaching, when there is absolutely no physical requirement, when it is not a function of how high you can jump or how strong you are, there is no physical litmus test to being a head coach in the league, there is absolutely no reason why a woman will not ascend to be a head coach in this league. We are very focused in on it.
Read Silver’s complete comments here, via ESPN.
[image via screengrab]
——
Follow Joe DePaolo (@joe_depaolo) on Twitter
