Players fail to give best to black coaches
By Stephen A. Smith
Inquirer Columnist
The truth hurts, especially when the sting is personal. It's never fun to paint a group with a broad brush, to attach deplorable behavior to the backs of many with whom one may share a cultural identity.
But how many African American coaches must have their abilities lambasted, their careers placed in peril, before someone starts noticing the primary cause for their travails? It's the black athlete.
It's those same athletes, paid millions to play ball, who march like soldiers in boot camp to the tune of those blessed with wealth, stability, power and, almost always, a different hue.
Yet that same black athlete, who starts out complacent, leans towards indifference before regressing to defiance the moment another black man has been assigned as his orchestrator.
If America were to be blindfolded without the luxury of a voice detector, a laundry list of professional black coaches would jump to attention just to confirm such an assertion.
"We'd tell you that players want to exploit us, to use that relationship to their advantage," one team official told me recently. "We'd tell you that the main reason players want us in those positions is so they can get away without being held accountable, sometimes.
"We'd tell you it would be OK if they held all coaches to the same standard, but that it's a struggle because they wouldn't try that with white coaches. They know those white coaches usually have more money, more power, at least the perception of both.
"But we'd tell you that only if we were open and honest, which is something we can never be on this subject."
Who needs candor when you have Randy Ayers?
Nausea should take over the next time we hear Ayers pull an Andy Reid - "We'll handle it... . We're keeping it in-house" - or the next time he responds to one of Glenn "Big Dog" Robinson's missing-in-action moments.
It's sickening to see Ayers sit around and absorb Robinson's theatrical belligerence and insubordination while making sure to cash the $22.8 million due him through the 2004-05 season.
Then again, what is Ayers to do, especially when his three-year, $4.5 million deal gets dwarfed by the players' $4.8 million average salary? When they know it - because they are smart enough to recognize such a small salary usually amounts to a small investment - they're in an ideal position to circumvent the coach's authority and exploit it at their discretion.
This is a problem that has existed in sports forever, and the effect is like that of a virus in flu season. Here's the ultimate surprise:
It is not the fault of the white man.
Not on this issue.
"It goes on," former Miami Heat player Tim Hardaway told me a few years ago. "It really does, and it's wrong. There are so many black players in this league that would hop at attention the second a white coach calls them but act like they don't even care around black coaches. Then we sit around wondering why more black coaches can't keep their jobs."
Actually, there's no reason to wonder.
Excluding the status of Denver Nuggets coach Jeff Bzdelik - the lowest-paid coach in the NBA - most white coaches get paid more. Most are blessed with more influence and power than their black counterparts. And, whether it's real or not, that perception is usually enough to keep athletes alert and on point, subconsciously reminding them of their responsibilities without the coaches' uttering a word.
That's why Jeff Van Gundy can take $5 million per year and not worry about controlling basketball operations, why Phil Jackson can get more than $6 million under similar circumstances, why Larry Brown has always commanded huge dollars and why every coach is looking to do the same.
Huge salaries do not merely mean security. They equate to a player knowing his coach isn't going anywhere, recognizing he'll need to conform and show a willingness to do so mainly for his own survival and future wealth.
We can't count Allen Iverson or even Derrick Coleman among this group because, say what you want about them, they are consistent. It's others - they know who they are - who leave us all scratching our heads with disgust and resignation.
Too bad Ayers, Mo Cheeks and so many other African American coaches don't have the cushion of huge salaries or influence, particularly considering the mentality of so many of today's players.
The players pontificate about why more of their own are not in positions of power but neglect to look in the mirror.
