The NBA leaned heavily into social justice politics recently, at the expense of its television ratings. But the latest coaching carousel proves that even the wokest league will never be woke enough for its new progressive base.
The Brooklyn Nets fired head coach Kenny Atkinson in March, making Jacque Vaughn the interim head coach. Now, with their season over, they made a splash by hiring NBA legend Steve Nash to lead them into next season.
But that’s not a good thing; in fact, it’s racist.
Vaughn is black, whereas Nash is white. Nash also has no previous head coaching experience. Therefore, it doesn’t matter that he is one of the greatest point guards in the history of the league, or that Brooklyn’s two star players (who are both black) signed off on the hire. Nash is proof that the NBA is a systemically racist organization.
“So many well qualified African American candidates and they get looked over by someone with no experience,” former NBA player Trevor Booker said. ESPN blowhard Stephen A. Smith said that Nash deserved the job and still went on an unhinged rant about “white privilege.”
That’s right, the supposedly woke NBA, which prides itself on being a glorified press organization for left-wing causes with some basketball, is actually racist to its core. The numbers don’t seem to lie: Of the league’s 30 teams, only five have black head coaches. And surely it must be racist if someone such as Smith is going to show more anger than he ever has over the NBA being in bed with the Chinese Communist Party.
The NBA is proof that it’s not just looking the other way on concentration camps that makes your woke pandering irrelevant. The NBA can put social justice slogans on jerseys, plaster “Black Lives Matter” on its court, and drive away fans with its political preaching all it wants. Even the league can’t live up to the woke standards it’s brought upon itself.
Of course, Nash is a qualified candidate who is one of the all-time greats, a two-time MVP who is known for mentoring young players. Of course, 30 teams is too small a sample size to allege some grand racist conspiracy in sports league hiring. But this is the world the NBA has built for itself and, like corporations before it, the league is learning that you will never be woke enough.
