The NBA is one place in America where diversity works.
When are the Nuggets going to get in the game?
In Denver, black men score the crucial baskets and white guys make all the important management decisions.
Look around the league. The NBA honored Avery Johnson as the best coach of 2006. Mike Brown works the bench for Cleveland. Wayne Cooper serves as a front-office executive with playoff qualifier Sacramento. Orlando rebuilds under the direction of general manager Otis Smith.
What do these four men have in common, other than they are movers and shakers in the league? All are African-Americans. What’s more, Johnson, Brown, Cooper and Smith once collected paychecks from the Nuggets. Denver let them all get away.
“I think it has huge significance any time an African-American can excel in a leadership position in the NBA. It sends a message, not only in basketball and throughout sports, but to the entire business world,” said Detroit Pistons director of player personnel Scott Perry, whose sense of history was passed down by his late father, Lowell Perry, the first black coach in the NFL’s modern era, hired as an assistant by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1957.
When will the Nuggets join the 21st century in terms of diversity? The team has groomed some of the brightest decision-makers in pro hoops, but Denver has not reaped the benefit.
People of color are noticeably absent from Denver’s organizational chart. The highest-ranking African-American employees are assistant coach Adrian Dantley and Teri Washington, senior director of communications.
With the recent departure of general manager Kiki Vandeweghe, will Denver look for a fresh, new direction in management, or conduct business in the same, old fashion?
Neither Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke nor executive vice president Paul Andrews were made available for comment on the lack of African-Americans in positions of power with the local NBA franchise.
“The opportunities are becoming more available for guys to take that next step. But is it ever going to be an even keel? I don’t think it ever will be,” said Smith, who fleeced Denver in a 2004 trade for point guard Jameer Nelson.
Introduce race into any discussion and hot buttons will be pushed, guaranteed. If the failed reigns of former Nuggets executives Dan Issel and Bernie Bickerstaff proved anything, it’s the NBA does not discriminate when it comes to bad basketball decisions.
“The NBA is far ahead of other professional sports, in terms of blacks in management positions,” Cooper said. He played center for the Nuggets from 1984-89, before joining the front office in Sacramento, where Cooper has acted as vice president of basketball operations for a decade.
“How many black players there are in the league should not be the determining factor in regards to the number of black executives. That should have nothing to do with it. Nobody owes you anything. I want to earn everything I’ve got,” Cooper said.
The Pistons have returned to championship glory under the direction of player-turned-administrator Joe Dumars. After jokes about the Clippers grew staler by the decade, when they finally won hearts in Los Angeles, vice president of basketball operations Elgin Baylor was rewarded as the NBA’s executive of the year.
“We haven’t gotten to the point yet where the NBA is completely color blind, because I don’t think society has gotten to that point. But the way to solve these issues of race is to face them every day,” Perry said.
“Joe Dumars, Elgin Baylor and Otis Smith are not only good African-American executives, they are good basketball executives, regardless of race.”
In the search for a new Denver general manager, the names of Cleveland Cavaliers assistant GM Lance Blanks and Detroit’s Perry should be on the list of candidates, not to fill a quota or promote social change, but because the Nuggets could use their basketball acumen.
The Nuggets can agree on nothing except they are dysfunctional. Ask center Marcus Camby. Or coach George Karl.
This messed-up franchise has got issues, from lack of trust in the locker room to forward Kenyon Martin’s contract. Let’s start with the touchiest problem.
In Denver, the division between scoring crucial baskets on the court and making critical decisions in the front office should not be black and white.
Listen to Mark Kiszla at 12:15 p.m. today on KRCN 1060 AM and the Radio Colorado Network. He can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
