San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich admits it's very important as a white head coach to gain the trust of his black players.
The NBA is mostly made up of African-Americans, and the Spurs' legendary tactician acknowledges that white people need to understand the privilege they have to empathize with what the African American community is going through.
The tragic murder of George Floyd in Minnesota has brought racism back to the forefront, even more so since sports are on a hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Especially if you’re a white coach and you’re coaching a group that’s largely black, you’d better gain their trust, you’d better be genuine, you’d better understand their situation,” Gregg Popovich told Maureen Dowd of the New York Times.
“You’d better understand where they grew up. Maybe there’s a black kid from a prep school. Maybe there’s another black kid who saw his first murder when he was 7 years old. It would bring you to tears.
“It’s even deeper than you thought, and that’s what really made me start to think: You’re a privileged son of a bitch and you still don’t get it as much as you think you do,” the Spurs coach continued. “You gotta work harder. You gotta be more aware. You gotta be pushed and embarrassed. You’ve gotta call it out.”
Spurs All-Star shooting guard DeMar DeRozan has been one of the San Antonio players partaking in the nationwide protests following the murder of Floyd at the hands of policemen.
Even though the Spurs are scheduled to play at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, the focus right now is on the Black Lives Matter movement and Popovich fully supports it.
It's going to be interesting to see if the 2019-20 season actually does resume. If a number of players decide not to play due to COVID-19 concerns and because it might take the focus away from the protests, the NBA may be forced to cancel the campaign altogether.
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