EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsDETROIT PISTONS COACH J.B. Bickerstaff and then-Orlando Magic coach Jamahl Mosley broke the ice after nearly two weeks of silence: a simple bro hug at midcourt before their teams played Game 7 of last season first-round series.More than a series was on the line -- jobs have been decided in these situations, and that series was no different. Regardless, the two consider themselves brothers."We didn't make eye contact during the series," Bickerstaff said. "I knew the outcome of that series -- we played two years before when I was in Cleveland -- if I would've lost to Jamahl, I would've been fired. I knew if Jamahl didn't beat us [last season], he was going to be fired."Coaching those games was extremely emotional, and them both coming down to Game 7s adds more weight to those moments. I know the impact that it has on you, your wife in that moment. His kids call me Uncle."Several coaches closely watched the matchup. They are part of an 11-member group chat featuring Black NBA head coaches and assistants, who have been friends for years."For us, it was fun," Indiana Pacers associate head coach Lloyd Pierce said. "It was Game 7. You don't have to put that face on anymore for your players. They knew. This is results oriented. Someone's going home, someone ain't. But it's all love. They had to be professionals, but it was a beautiful moment for our group."Pierce and Washington Wizards assistant David Vanterpool couldn't wait to show the video of the two close friends' hug before the game at their annual "wine and conversation" event that takes place during summer league. It exemplified the community they have striven to create: two fierce competitors in their natural element who, behind the scenes, are friends in any other group chat, commiserating over shared experiences and struggles, talking about issues of the world in a space where they knew it would stay without judgment.And doing so with the only men who can identify with what they are going through: each other.There are nine Black head coaches in the NBA -- three fewer than last season with Jason Kidd, Chauncey Billups and Doc Rivers no longer with their franchises. When Kidd and Boston's Joe Mazzulla met in the 2024 NBA Finals, it was the first time two Black coaches faced each other in the Finals since 1975, when Al Attles' Golden State Warriors swept K.C. Jones' Washington Bullets. It's been cyclical, but the NBA had recently reached a high mark for Black coaches. There were 15 in 2022-23 and 14 the following season. In the 2019-20 season, that number was just seven.This collective, which as a group chat has expanded into other events, has become an outlet to discuss opportunities that have come and ones that haven't. But it has also expanded into a network of support and connections that extends far beyond the court. The connections are so intertwined -- coaches who have served under one another and been introduced through members of the group chat -- it's almost too many to name."It's the most important thing we have in this business," Bickerstaff said. "Like nothing gets done in the NBA without connections and community. So like us being able to build a community has changed the outlook and the window of opportunity for people."Hours after Bickerstaff and Mosley embraced ahead of their Game 7 meeting, the top-seeded Pistons beat the eighth-seeded Magic, completing a comeback from being down 3-1 in the series. Shortly after, Bickerstaff's thoughts drifted to Mosley and his future."You're extremely excited about what's next for you and you have to prepare for that," Bickerstaff said. "But you're also walking around with the weight of what happens to someone you care about."Mosley was fired 24 hours later. Two weeks later, the New Orleans Pelicans hired him. NO ONE CAN REMEMBER when the group chat started, who started it or even the original coaches who were in it -- some were added after the initial iteration.What they all agreed on was how quickly it became a place for coaches at different stages of their lives and careers to vent, seek advice, talk about the world and do so freely.New York Knicks coach Mike Brown is the oldest at 56. Charlotte Hornets assistant coach John Bryant (not to be confused with Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach Johnnie Bryant, who's also part of the group chat) is the youngest, not yet 40. It also includes Bickerstaff, Mosley, Pierce, Vanterpool, former Memphis Grizzlies and Knicks coach David Fizdale, Philadelphia 76ers assistant Phil Handy, former Los Angeles Lakers coach and current Milwaukee Bucks assistant Darvin Ham and Wizards assistant J.J. Outlaw.Like any group chat, there are jokes -- and nobody is off-limits.Brown's viral demand and demonstration, showing Sacramento Kings players what it's like to sprint back on defense ("turn the f---ing jets on!") made the rounds."We gave Mike s--- about that for two hours," Pierce said of Brown's moment in Sacramento.Fizdale's "take that for data" slam during the 2017 NBA playoffs when he was coaching the Grizzlies against the San Antonio Spurs was another moment, both for its seriousness and its virality."If you do something and somebody finds a clip and puts it out there, make no mistake," Pierce said. "Fiz went viral and next thing you know someone makes a light skin joke and it's not about the clip anymore. It's about the jokes now. Classic group chat stuff."The friendships started with hoops and Hall of Famer Tim Grgurich's annual basketball camp in Las Vegas. Those four-day summer sessions were a place for the league to convene and for upward of 50 young players and 30 coaches to sharpen their tools. Younger coaches worked one-on-one with current players and also met with older coaches to network. After a long day of work, the coaches would hang out late into the night."We were still the first ones in the gym the next morning," Pierce said. "We were the guys that were running Grug camp, and coaches and front offices were taking notice of that. Our energy, our ability to connect with players at a high level on the court."While camps such as Grgurich's often serve as laboratories for coaches to hone new strategies, the group chat doesn't talk about basketball philosophy as much."We never really crossed that line. It's not a venting spot [about our teams]," Pierce said. "Somebody might send an awareness text, 'Anybody see this?' And we'll break off from there."Pierce, Bickerstaff and Ham are the most vocal about granular basketball issues, with Bickerstaff being head of the NBA Coaches Association. When Vanterpool, then an associate head coach in Minnesota, was passed over for then-Raptors assistant Chris Finch after Ryan Saunders was fired in February 2021, Pierce was one of the main voices who spoke out in support of Vanterpool.The group became closer in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic converged with a nationwide social justice uprising. Brown led a weekly Zoom call for Black coaches. The group organized Peloton rides to bond together. Pierce and Bickerstaff became vocal after George Floyd's death, coming up with the Coaches for Racial Justice initiative."There's a security. Say whatever the hell you want to say," Pierce said. "Johnny Bryant, John Bryant and J.J. Outlaw are the young pups. They've usually sat in the background, so to speak, because they know if, you know, they pop off, we all kind of gang up on them like big brothers."BICKERSTAFF JOINED FIZDALE as an assistant on the Grizzlies when Bickerstaff's run as the Houston Rockets' interim head coach ended after the 2015-16 season. Outlaw, the only one in the group chat with a heavy football background -- he played wide receiver at Villanova before turning back to basketball -- was also on the staff. He had previously served as a video coordinator for Brown with the Lakers."My unique contribution to the group, having a different perspective," Outlaw said. "My path to get into coaching was different. That group gave me a lot of confidence."Outlaw remembers being at Grgurich's camp and Pierce approaching him for one of their first conversations."He said, 'Take me through your defensive philosophies,' which is basically, 'Take me through Mike Brown's defensive philosophy,'" Outlaw said. "I didn't have one of my own at that time."Outlaw went through it, talking about shrinking the floor, playing with activity, not giving up the middle of the floor. Pierce nodded but didn't say much until Outlaw finished."He said, 'I worked for Mike in Cleveland. I knew the answer. I wanted to make sure you knew the answer.' That was big for me. Lloyd cares about people, and J.B., too," Outlaw said.There have been times when support was needed even beyond the job. During the 2023 first-round series between the Cavaliers and Knicks, Outlaw's wife was close to giving birth while his mother was battling ovarian cancer.His son was born on a Sunday and brought home on a Wednesday. The next day, doctors gave him some sobering news: There was nothing more they could do for his mother."Who do you share that information with? You don't want the league to know; you want your private life to be that," Outlaw said.For Bickerstaff, Outlaw was his godbrother and Outlaw's mother was his "Aunt Linda"."That's my second mom. I know what he's going through, what his dad is going through," Bickerstaff said. "It's the greatest system of support in our position that you can have. A group of people who understand exactly what you're going through from a professional standpoint and how heavy that can be and also support you in your personal life as well."Pierce's wife and Ham's wife had been diagnosed with breast cancer, thus adding a new depth to their conversations. They were able to trade notes and lean on each other in what can often feel like a helpless situation."I could see the fear," Ham said of his wife, who was initially diagnosed in 2021 before the Bucks won the NBA title. "[In August], we got a clean bill of health."BROWN STOOD IN front of the crowd at the annual wine and conversation event in Las Vegas in 2025, showing more emotion on this night than when he led the Knicks to an NBA title less than a year later.The event, a quiet highlight of summer league, is the culmination of what was born at Grgurich's camp. The coaches were able to go from being a small group hanging out in Vegas having dinner at the Wynn one year, to each bringing another coach with them the next year to get them around like-minded folks, to gathering enough momentum in a few years to host the sponsored event. Coaches and front office execs gather for a couple of hours for a panel discussion and to celebrate an honoree -- a longtime head coach receiving his flowers for his dedication to the game.Usually eloquent, Brown could barely get his words out, trying to find the right ones to describe his relationship with Bernie Bickerstaff, whom the coaches were honoring with a lifetime achievement award that night.The elder Bickerstaff hired Brown as a video coordinator for the Denver Nuggets after Brown finished his playing career at San Diego in 1992. Ironically, one of his tasks was keeping an eye on J.B. Bickerstaff, nine years his junior.Little did anyone know the roots of this group would begin with those two men: Brown and Bickerstaff."I don't want to make this about my dad, but it's kind of a gap bridger," Bickerstaff said. J.J. Outlaw's dad, John, grew up with Bernie Bickerstaff. J.B., whose full name is John-Blair, was named after John Outlaw.When Brown was hired by the elder Bickerstaff, he would help with J.J., filming some of his football games. So when Outlaw climbed back into basketball, Brown called in need of a video coordinator."It was New Year's Eve and the season started on Christmas [in 2011] and asked me did I want the job," Outlaw said. "I asked him when did he need me, and he said, 'yesterday.'"Two days later, Outlaw began his coaching journey on a staff with Ham, who he knew back when Ham was playing for Bernie Bickerstaff's Nuggets in the late '90s."Bernie changed the whole trajectory of my family's life, man," Outlaw said. "I'm an only child, so I have a brother in J.B. who I grew up with, who's five years older, who you know is looking out for me and mentoring me and getting on my ass and cussing me out every other day."His story isn't dissimilar to many of the coaches in the group. Whether they knew it or not when they first connected, a community was being built.When Fizdale received his first head coaching opportunity in Memphis in 2016, it was proof that the struggles coaches experienced -- almost all of them without NBA playing experience -- had a finish line."There's a real pathway for all of us," Pierce said. "I remember sending a message saying, 'What you've done is create and represented all of us, and you've given all of us an opportunity to now be looked at as head coaches.' It was what we needed to stay the course and keep doing what we were doing. The fear was, we were going to have to conform."Pierce got his chance years later, coaching the Atlanta Hawks from 2018 to 2021, then landed on Rick Carlisle's staff in Indiana the next year, a critical element of its franchise turnaround.The younger Bickerstaff began cementing himself in Cleveland, where he finally landed a head coaching opportunity in 2019. He went to Detroit in 2024 and led it to a 60-win record last season."The strength of our community is the talent," Bickerstaff said. "I get let go in Cleveland, J.J. is good enough to get a job somewhere else. Lloyd gets let go and immediately has options. There's a talent level to the group where you know we don't feel like we're just carrying around dead weight."Those long nights of work have turned into talks about fatherhood and parenting and real estate and politics, and they gathered again for recent weddings and vacations over the summer.It's also why they have a special appreciation for the man who finally joined the fraternity of champions this past June in Brown -- who was given a standing ovation at this year's wine and conversation weeks after leading New York to its first title in 53 years."There's a common connection with Mike, it's why we honor him so much," Pierce said."Seeing Mike, because of his experiences in the past. Being let go in Sacramento was a joke, being let go in L.A. was a joke. Knowing how good he is, for everyone to see he's all that we've talked about and now he's got a championship, so now you know it too, it's refreshing."And the group chat let him know it.
