If You Call Young Black NBA Players “Boys,” Can You Hear Them?

By Laura M. Wilde | Holistic Mental Performance Coach

At the Chicago NBA combine a few years ago, I met a team psychologist who worked for the San Antonio Spurs. As we talked about some of the talented young black men on the team, she called them “boys.”

I was shocked at how casually she let me know that info. I stopped her. I told her that calling young Black men “boys” was inappropriate. She blew me off and told me it was fine.

That exchange stayed with me. I am a Black woman who has worked inside the NBA. “Boy” has a history when it is directed at Black men. A practitioner entrusted with their inner lives should understand why. When I raised the issue, the answer I got was dismissal. She said: oh they know I love them. They don't mind.

I cannot tell you what any player heard in a private session. I can tell you what I heard at the combine.

I hoped for another chance to address it. I never got one. Her Spurs contract was not renewed in August 2023. Later that year, she sued the team and Joshua Primo, a young Black player on that roster, alleging that he repeatedly exposed himself during 9 private sessions. The lawsuit was settled. One of the young men on the team she had called “a boy” was now at the center of a public case involving her. That made my unanswered concern about how we speak of these athletes feel more urgent. It does not tell me what happened behind closed doors.

Trust starts before the technique

Mental performance work asks an athlete to bring you things he may hide from almost everyone else: fear, family pressure, identity, and the gap between the player the world sees and the person living inside that body. A credential can attest to training. It cannot make an athlete feel respected.

The word mattered. Her response mattered more. Cultural competence is tested when someone tells you that your language carries harm. Do you get curious and correct course? Or do you insist that you, rather than the people affected, get to decide what is fine?

Who gets entrusted with young Black athletes?

I want teams to ask harder questions before they give someone access to a young athlete’s private world. Does this practitioner understand the distinct culture and pressures surrounding him? Has the practitioner earned trust with athletes whose lives differ from their own? Can the practitioner hear a Black colleague say, “That word is not okay,” without brushing it aside? 

I'm biracial and my mom is white, which means my mom married a black man. She raised me. She became a counselor and she truly loved the young students she worked with and they were of all different races. She knew what was appropriate and what wasn't. This other woman hired by a team -  did not.

Shared experience can be a powerful starting point. A Black practitioner may recognize racial dynamics that others overlook. A man may understand some of the pressures a young male athlete faces. Teams should seek those perspectives instead of treating them as optional. Identity alone does not guarantee skill; people without either shared experience can earn trust too. But they must show that they listen when their blind spots are named. The burden should not fall on a young athlete to educate the person hired to support him or her.

I bring what I call Black Auntie energy to this work. That means I can celebrate a young Black man’s gifts, see the person beyond the jersey, and tell him the truth when he needs to hear it. Even when it's harsh. I would have worked hard to help any young man I accused of exposing himself to me make better choices before bringing it to the team. I am not saying Josh does this. None of us was in the room so it's just he said/she said unless other evidence is available that we don't know about. My job as the team psychologist professional at the LA Clippers was to make sure the athletes were mentally supported and help them build resilience and manage the season's ups and downs off and on the court. 

I brought warmth and upheld standards. I brought care without treating them like children. For an athlete navigating fame, money, pressure, and other people’s expectations at a young age, that kind of relationship can matter as much as any technique on a worksheet.

Look at who gets hired. If a team’s support staff lacks people who understand young Black men from lived experience, it has chosen to operate without that insight. That choice affects athletes. 

Would you want your child to trust or work with someone who spoke about them with so little respect when they were not in the room?

Ask the athlete

Give the athlete a real choice of practitioners. Ask whether he feels respected and understood. Make it safe to request someone else. If a concern is raised, take it seriously and follow up.

Technical qualifications do not settle the question of fit. When the work touches identity, trust is part of the qualification.

I spoke up at the combine because those young men deserved to be spoken about with respect. I am speaking up now because sport has become very good at measuring young Black men’s athletic value while asking too little about who is trusted with their humanity.