INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- LeBron James says he would embrace having a woman coach him in the NBA.
"I mean, if she knows what she's doing, we'll love it," James said Thursday. "I mean, listen, at the end of the day, basketball ... it's not about male or female. You know the game, you know the game."
James spoke about the subject when asked about San Antonio Spurs assistant coach Becky Hammon, who was reportedly a candidate for Colorado State University's men's basketball's head-coaching position before it went to Niko Medved.
"Listen, we have so many female reporters now that know the game and they cover the game," James continued. "I mean, you look at Doris Burke [Wednesday] night, she's one of the greatest that we have in our game. She knows the game, so it doesn't matter."
Burke, who will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in September as the recipient of the Curt Gowdy award for electronic media, called the Toronto Raptors' game against the Boston Celtics on ESPN on Wednesday.
"If you know the game, then everybody is accepting of that," James said. "It's the same thing with players. You have different walks and shapes and lives of players, but if you can play, you can play. You always accept it. You can't play, you can't play. If you know the game, you're always accepted. If you don't know the game, it's all about your knowledge of the game. it shouldn't matter if you're a male or a female."
Gregg Popovich hired Hammon, a standout player in her own right in the WNBA, in 2014 to join his staff as the first full-time female assistant coach in the NBA.
"Obviously, you guys know how fond I am of coach Pop, so for him to bring Becky in there to be able to be an assistant and kind of give her input -- I don't quite know how much input she has, I'm not there on a day-to-day basis -- but just having her face there, it means a lot," James said. "There's also some female coaches in the NFL as well too. It's cool. If you know the game, you know the game. I love talking the game, so I don't think of it being a problem at all."
