Adam Silver recently made an appearance at The Economic Club of Washington, D.C. where he spoke about the future of the NBA and some of the changes he would like to see happen throughout the Association. More and more women are becoming referees and coaches which Silver says is a great change. As he explained, he feels like the league has been lagging behind in that area and that it has started to progress over the last couple of years.
"It's an area, frankly, where I've acknowledged that I'm not sure how it was that it remained so male-dominated for so long," Silver said, via the Associated Press. "Because it's an area of the game where physically, certainly, there's no benefit to being a man, as opposed to a woman, when it comes to refereeing."
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Silver went on to say that he wants to see women make up half of all referees and coaches entering the league. For Silver, it doesn't make sense why there aren't more women already in the league.
"The goal is: Going forward, it should be roughly 50-50 of new officials entering in the league," he said. "Same for coaches, by the way. We have a program, too. There's no reason why women shouldn't be coaching men's basketball."
There are currently three female officials in the NBA and a handful of assistants.