Hoops, Heels, and Holes In The Hierarchy: Women, The Front Office, And The NBA

Women continue to make herstory in the NBA, but there is still a ways to go–especially in the front office

2014 was a big year for women in the NBA. A historic moment happened in July when Michele Roberts, a Washington, DC-based attorney who is considered one of the top trial lawyers in the country, was voted in as the newest executive director of the National Basketball Players’ Association (NBPA), the union that seeks to protect the financial and health interests of the approximately 447 men currently playing in the NBA. Roberts beat out other, male candidates; she is famously quoted as telling the executive committee, “My past is littered with the bones of men who were foolish enough to think I was someone they could sleep on.”

This was more than a boast, as Roberts immediately served notice to the NBA that she was not taking the lackadaisical and self-serving route of her predecessor, disgraced NBPA executive director Billy Hunter. Predictably, Roberts was labeled as “combative” (an adjective that seems disproportionately applied to women of color) and “not choosing her battles wisely” by the male contingent of reporters and league executives who got in her crosshairs; the change from “boy’s club” to “accountability”  under Roberts’ command had to be disconcerting. Her impending showdown with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, on behalf of the league’s owners, over the upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiation will be something to watch as Silver–also an attorney–may have finally met his match. Though both sides are attempting to talk things out in advance–a lockout in 2017 would be detrimental to the billions of TV dollars due teams and players in the 2016-17 season–a battle to reclaim what the players lost, and then some, looms.

A month later, in August 2014, former WNBA standout Becky Hammon was named the first full-time, paid female assistant coach in the NBA. The following summer she was the first female to be a head coach in the NBA Summer League, which is an introduction into the NBA for recently drafted rookies; a shot at redemption for former NBA players; and a chance to break into the league for the undrafted. Hammon led the Spurs team to the championship, again becoming the first woman to do so.  Shortly thereafter, women’s basketball legend Nancy Lieberman was hired as a full-time assistant coach with the Sacramento Kings, where she’d served as an assistant coach for the team’s D-League team.

Good job, NBA. It’s a start. Now do better.

As positive as the hirings of Hammon and Lieberman are within the league, and Roberts outside of it, the only true positions of power within the NBA are in the executive offices. Irina Pavlova, of the Brooklyn Nets, is listed as president of Onexim Sports and Entertainment Holding and “is the official conduit between the Nets business management, the NBA, and ownership.” Jeanie Buss is president and majority owner (along with the other Buss children) of the Los Angeles Lakers, and sits on the NBA Board of Governors. Gillian Zucker is the president of business operations for the Clippers. Amanda Green is the Basketball Operations Coordinator/Legal & Administration for the Oklahoma City Thunder, a position which was created for her. Otherwise, women are still largely absent from true positions of power and influence within the league. There are no female general managers, presidents or vice presidents of basketball operations, or head coaches. There is only one female majority owner: Gail Miller of the Utah Jazz (Buss is not a majority owner in her own right).

Even the aforementioned women are rarely given their just due on their own merits; instead, their accomplishments are refracted through the prism of the males in their professional (and sometimes personal) lives. Without the ear of Mikhail Prokhorov, the billionaire owner of the Nets, would Pavlova’s influence be considered as important? Zucker was hired by new Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, whose outsized personality is renowned. Buss–for all her skill in keeping an increasingly leaky Lakers boat afloat following the death of her father, Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss; and the retirement tour of Lakers icon Kobe Bryant–is still considered to have gotten this far by virtue of being Dr. Buss’s daughter and the long-time partner (now fiancée) of Phil Jackson, the current president of the New York Knicks. Jackson, as head coach, led the Michael-Jordan era Chicago Bulls to six championships and the Lakers to five. Miller inherited the team upon the death of her husband, Larry Miller.

In a league of thirty professional teams and at least one hundred times that in front office staff alone, the best path to power for a woman in the NBA, at this time, is still to date or marry one of the players.