It’s definitely a weight that you carry as a woman in this industry. Especially if you’re on a staff that’s majority men, like I am. You kinda look around the room like, I’m going to have to take this one, aren’t I?
I’d never had the chance to talk with Jasmyn Wimbish before. Definitely circumstantial, and now very glad that’s remedied, because it’s a rare thing to settle into such a free flowing conversation right off the bat with someone, and that’s what happened when she joined me as a guest for the podcast.
We talked about how her love of Dirk Nowitzki and Mavs fandom, growing up as a kid in Phoenix, came from trying to beat her brother in video games. Also, Nowitzki’s personality, the tumultuousness of being a Mavs fan, and the “second year Jason Kidd experience”.
We also talked about cyclical beats in basketball — which came to mind coming back to this story Jasmyn wrote in 2019 about the lack of women of colour in college head coaching roles — and whether or not it’s possible to get into better cycles, since the cycles themselves aren’t going away. This applies to, of course, hiring women as coaches in basketball at every level, but also the way we talk about MVP consideration and how we judge athletes (including athletes judging other athletes).
Finally, we got into the NBA’s double-speak as an organization that presents as progressive but handles things regressively, and the weight and frustrations of being a woman in the industry knowing, most of the time, you’re going to be the first person to speak up.
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