Does the NBA have a bias against European coaches?

Since the NBA’s inception in 1946, there has only been one European-born head coach in league history. Let’s explore if the NBA has a deeply-ingrained bias on hiring European coaches.

Throughout the NBA’s seventy-four year history, there has been an intense disparity of European-born players and head coaches in the NBA.

As history has shown, many great European players have dominated the NBA during their careers and have left a lasting imprint on the world’s greatest basketball league. But the same cannot be said about European head coaches, because they haven’t been given enough opportunities to leave their own imprint.

Željko Obradović, who is considered to be EuroLeague’s most successful head coach of all time, has amassed a 405-165 record and won nine total EuroLeague Championships over 24 years.

In spite of all of his success in Europe, Obradović has never coached in the NBA.

The 51-year-old Serbian coach has previously voiced his opinion on the lack of trust the NBA has towards European coaches and also why he has never had an interest in coaching in the world’s leading professional basketball league.

On the other hand, a poll six years ago revealed that Obradović’s brash coaching style may not have sat well with NBA players, which is completely absurd due to the fact that he is highly revered in Europe and certainly has had more success than many head coaches in the NBA because of his accolades and passion for the game of basketball.

Back in December, Obradović sat down with Sportando and expressed his thoughts on why European coaches haven’t had much opportunity in the NBA.

"There are no European coaches, and you know why? Because the NBA is mafia, they don’t leave a coach to work. And nobody can’t say anything. I can right now because I don’t care. NBA is the best basketball league, but without any doubts, I can say that there are a lot of European coaches that can work there.”"

There is truth behind Obradović’s statement, as history shows that the opportunity for European head coaches in the NBA isn’t as fruitful as it always has been in Europe.

Furthermore, Houston Rockets‘ head coach Mike D’Antoni, who holds a dual citizenship for Italy and the United States, stated that European coaches are typically “…  getting paid a lot more as a head coach over there than as an assistant over here, so they don’t go that route. It’s hard to get a job.”

Interestingly enough, the late and great former NBA Commissioner David Stern previously stated that “playing and coaching are not relatable parallels. Over time, there will likely be more international coaches in a shorter period of time than there were successful international players.”

When comparing both of these statements, both do hold truth to a certain extent; but still this topic of an extremely noticeable difference of European players and coaches is prevalent in the NBA.

It would be interesting to see if D’Antoni or Stern’s statements hold true after Kokoškov’s recent experience.

Let’s look at some European coaches who were not given enough opportunity.