NBA

Annual diversity report applauds the NBA’s hiring practices and sets it as an example to other sports

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Antonio Kozlow
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Antonio Kozlow Sports Editor

Antonio is a life long sports enthusiast and professional journalist, who shares an obssesive urge to find and dig up the most interesting facts to guide gamblers towards more exciting, yet safe bets. In his own words, ''you can never really know enough about the things you love''.

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Sports Editor

Updated09 Aug 2023

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It seems that every annual TIDES diversity report the NBA is receiving higher and higher regards concerning the hiring practices of people of color. Last year they set the record for most black head coaches, and this Tuesday they were awarded a combined grade of  “A” in the 2023 NBA Racial and Gender Report Card.

The study from the University of Central Florida already had announced that the league had reached a new all-time highs for head coaches of color 17 in November 2022, and as of today, there are 15 cases.

One example of a lauded initiative was the hiring of Milwaukee’s new trainer Adrian Griffin, who will become an official NBA head coach for the first time this upcoming campaign.

According to the director for TIDES Richard Lapchick, the fact that the NBA’s 30 franchises are mostly led by people of color matters so much because it increases the chances of opening other positions for the black community.

“When a league takes the initiative to set the kind of example that the NBA does, that’s not only good for sport, but good for society as well,” he assured.

The report analyzes yearly the hiring for positions within sport clubs concerning league leadership. This 2022/23 season, the NBA received an A+ in diversity initiatives, B+ for gender hiring practices and an A+ for racial hiring.

“We’re encouraged that the data reflected in the TIDES Race and Gender Report Card signifies the NBA’s dedication to attracting and developing a diverse pool of talented employees,” said the NBA chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer Lesley Slaton Brown. “We will continue to focus on these efforts to drive progress across our global business.”

Recently a pair of women were hired to make NBA G League history as the first to lead a franchise in that division

Another great example of these initiatives came in June, when the G League’s Stockton Kings announced Lindsey Harding as head coach and new general manager Anjali Ranadivé, to become the first women to lead a team from that division.

This contributed to the fact that in over a decade the NBA League office reached the highest percentage of women in professional staff roles with 43.3%. Lapchick believes that consumers in general will spend money where they see people who resemble themselves.

Check out what initiatives the NBA was taking in regards of hiring diversity two years ago:

“The NBA was really the first league to realize — and this was a long time ago — that diversity now is a business imperative, not just a moral imperative,” the TIDES director said. “And they’ve made it a part of their business principles to be inclusive and to use that image that they have to market the league as successfully as they have.”

However, the report also demonstrates that the NBA still lacks diversity in the highest levels, as they recieved an “F” due to the fact that only 10% on the team’s governors are women, and just 13.3% of them being black.