All of the players in the Finals have been tested daily for COVID-19 and none of them have returned a confirmed positive test since July 7, the NBA announced today (via Twitter). Outside of Chris Paul early in the postseason, no player has returned a positive test since the playoffs began.
We have more from around the basketball world:
- NBA players are increasingly open-minded about female coaches, but front offices remain reluctant to give one of them a shot as a head coach, according to Thuc Nhi Nguyen of the Los Angeles Times. There’s increasing pressure on the league to give Spurs assistant Becky Hammon — a finalist for the Trail Blazers job — a chance to be a head coach, but GMs in a risk-averse league keep finding reasons to pass on her and other female candidates. Having more female executives around the league could change those perceptions, Nguyen adds.
- Former NBA big man Okaro White has signed to play with Greece’s Panathinaikos next season, Alessandro Maggi of Sportando relays. White played in Russia last season. He appeared in 41 games for the Heat in 2016-18 and saw action in three games with the Wizards in 2018/19.
- Former NBA guard Darrun Hilliard has agreed to terms with Germany’s Bayern Munich, Emiliano Carchia of Sportando tweets. Hilliard appeared in 77 Pistons games from 2015-17 after getting drafted in the second round. He also played 14 games for the Spurs during the 2017/18 season.
- Timberwolves buyers Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore met with the league’s Finance Committee this week, Chris Hine of the Minneapolis Star Tribune writes. It’s part of the process to receive league approval for their first 20% purchase of the team. They will make multiple purchases of the franchise over the next few years until they become the controlling owners. The sale agreement was reached in mid-May. The Finance Committee is expected to recommend to the NBA’s Board of Governors that it approves the first sale.
The issue with hiring a female head coach is not about what she would do while running the team. It’s when something goes wrong. It’s no secret when a player wants a coach gone. If that situation comes up with a female coach it would be a circus. Coaches are hired to be fired and a GM is reluctant to have to be the one to eventually make that decision.
Yeah, well GMs are hired (and paid well) to make tough decisions. Is firing a female coach worse than dealing with a player involved with domestic/child abuse? Weapons charges at a parade of homes? Trading a beloved franchise staple under the promise of a rebuild?
“It’s too hard” is not a good enough excuse.
I never said it’s “too hard”. It’s potentially exposing your organization to being labeled as anti women if they ever had to move on from a female coach. What owner/GM wants to be the subject of hit pieces by ESPN and other sources?
I mean can’t you make the same argument about teams that interview women candidates then make up bogus excuses not to hire them? Or teams that don’t even give them a look? What about all the positive PR that would come from being a Trailblazer/pioneer?
Sure, you didn’t literally say “it’s too hard”, but the whole idea that avoiding a choice now because it might eventually be might be tough to deal with down the line is arguably the same thing.
That’s how any decision is made, to reduce the difficulty of doing otherwise.
Hiring a woman might be walking into something additional a FO did not have to. It is lame that such a risk has not been taken, but it is a risk.
The recent demand for a NBA HC seems to be the ability to relate to young black men, and the identity-politic tenet of such a demand is to hire a young black coach for that purpose. I am dubious of the merit of this formula, because the worst thing for a player in his early twenties is a young coach trying to establish himself.
Lindsey Gottlieb seemed in an ideal situation to be HC for the Cavs, but she took the USC job after 2 yrs in CLE.
I hope Hammon does get the HC job, but part of that is I just want to see what would happen. IDK what.
I’m sure Becky Hammond could get a fairly desirable head coaching job somewhere in the college ranks, like many assistant NBA coaches have done before landing head coaching jobs in the league. Show you can do it without Pop calling the shots and you will get hired eventually.
Why should she be held to that standard? If a team likes her, they will hire her. Plenty of NBA coaches never coached in college. Weird point to make exclusively about Hammond.
I think it would be a good way for her to prove to the doubters that she is ready. It’s a man’s league. Show that you can get men to play under you, not Pop. Pro teams might not want to take that leap without hard evidence. I don’t think it would be weird to beef up the resume if she really wants to be a head coach in the NBA. Sometimes we all have to do things we don’t really want to in order to further our careers.
Coaching college and nba are 2 different skillsets. Success in one is not a guarantee of success in the other. I would say most pro HCs are ex players or pro assistants.
Ladies & gentleman… & that is why sooo many teams keep on failing in this league, ’cause they are risk-averse!!!
The only way to win or do somethin’ out of the ordinary is to reach for the moon… if you miss well, are you gonna be worst than you are now? Doubt it!
At least try somethin’ brave, chickens never win any fight do they?
There are ZERO teams in the NBA that are failing. There are no teams at risk of folding. Are there teams that lose? Sure, but unless every team in the league plays at .500, there will always be losing teams. But never forget that losing doesn’t equal failure in a league where the bottom line is not championships, it is MONEY.
I kinda actually think there is a good chance it goes the other way? Part of me feels like there would be a huge movement towards the “yea but they did it” camp if a team hired a female HC and it didn’t work out.
Obviously an owner and GM aren’t going to be inclined to play with the fate of the franchise and its players because of that, but I do think there would and will be a big positive reaction to a team hiring a female head coach.
And as far as firing, I don’t think it’s actually that big an issue. It’s sports. There is tangible evidence if something is or isn’t working. A gm would be able to have something to point to and say look, there is definitive proof this isn’t working. We are going in another direction.
Because that’s how Becky is going to want to get her HC job, because a team was “pressured” into giving her the job, not because she was the best candidate.
HC is a leadership position, and that distinguishes it from most other jobs and certainly any AC position. Anyone who’s pursued, or hired those who pursued, such a position knows the following. Candidates don’t get a “shot” at such a position based on their resume (a resume might get then an interview, not the job). It’s up to the candidate for the job to convince the hirer that they’re the best hire. The hirer has no obligation to explain the reasons for not hiring a candidate (there’s always only 1 reason, the candidate didn’t convince the hirer that they were the best hire). Yes, believe it or not, people (and groups) – imperfect as they are – they pick their own leaders, and the burden is on those who want to lead them to convince them to follow.
In the Blazer situation, at least, Hammon was given more than enough opportunity to convince the team’s PTB that she was the best hire. She failed. People can infantilize her by suggesting otherwise (which, btw, doesn’t help her), but the reality remains, she failed. Hopefully, for her future, she understands it’s her failure and owns it. Or she can just rely on pressure on the league to land her a HC’ing job.
I don’t think she had much of a chance but it wouldn’t hurt to think of it as a fail if she gets an angle from it.