Brooklyn Nets' Hiring Jacque Vaughn Shows Difference in Coaching Between NFL and NBA

The Brooklyn Nets hired Jacque Vaughn as coach Wednesday after recently firing Steve Nash.

Vaughn was a Nets assistant since 2016, and was briefly an interim head coach in 2020.

The hiring of Vaughn, who is black, was just days the Indianapolis Colts hired ESPN analyst Jeff Saturday, who is white, as coach to replace Frank Reich. Saturday has no coaching experience, further fueling the perceived NFL's practices of hiring minority coaches while the NBA has plenty diversity on the sidelines.

Some analysts were upset a black coach with more experience didn’t get consideration, but it must be noted there have been instances of an interim coach keeping the job after the season.

“Ain’t no way in hell a black guy getting a job like this, sitting around doing what we do,” Shannon Sharpe said on Undisputed. “The number one thing people say about black coaches not getting a job is ‘he ain’t got no experience.’ But everything they listed, [Saturday] has none of that.”

The NFL instituted “The Rooney Rule” to include more diversity in teams’ hiring processes. Still, there are only six minority head coaches in 2022, with only three being African-American. Some believe the standards for white coaches are different than for minorities ones.

The NBA has plenty diversity, with half of the coaches being African-American. In 2012, the Miami Heat's Spoelstra became the first Asian-American to lead a team to a title in one of the four prominent North American sports.

Vaughn’s hiring by the Nets is the latest example of the NBA’s difference in diverse hiring than the NFL.

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Jayden Armant is a contributor to Inside the Heat. He is a student at Howard University. He can be reached at jayden.armant@bison.howard.edu or follow him on Twitter @jaydenarmant.