The Rush: Renee Montgomery thinks the NFL could learn something from the NBA
Two-time WNBA champ Renee Montgomery stops by to discuss how James Harden in Brooklyn will be must-see TV regardless of whether it works, what the NBA should do to save its season amidst a losing battle with COVID-19, why the Jaguars hiring of Urban Meyer underscores a USA Today report excoriating the NFL for lack of diversity in front offices, and the growing social influence of the WNBA after its successful campaign to elect Reverend Raphael Warnock to the Senate in Georgia.
Video Transcript
JARED QUAY: You got your witty--
RENEE MONTGOMERY: Listen, listen. Watch your head! I tell people that all the time. Watch your head.
JARED QUAY: What's up, everybody. I'm here with two-time WNBA champion Renee Montgomery. Renee, how are you doing?
RENEE MONTGOMERY: I'm doing good. How are you doing, Jared?
JARED QUAY: I'm just happy I made it to 2021. So this season, you've been doing a lot of in-studio analysis for the Atlanta Hawks, and with that being said, I'm hoping you can get you to analyze some of these top sports stories we made today. You want to help with the headlines?
RENEE MONTGOMERY: Let's go. Let's get it. What you got for me?
- Helping with headlines!
JARED QUAY: All right, so James Harden and his beard have joined Kevin Durant and maybe Kyrie Irving with the Brooklyn Nets. Is this going to work out?
RENEE MONTGOMERY: Oh, man. I think it's going to have its problems, but how often do we think we're going to see all of them on the court at the same time? I'm curious. Like, I don't know, but I feel like it could. Steve Nash might put a little bit of magic on there and make it work. So I'm interested to see. I'm intrigued.
- Thanks, James.
JARED QUAY: The NBA has 99 problems, and pretty much every one of them is COVID right now. Pretty much, games are getting postponed every night. Do you think the league can get this under control?
RENEE MONTGOMERY: I think they're going to have to do something drastic. I don't know what that's going to be. The bubble was-- it worked. It's perfect, but it was terrible on the players, mental, and terrible just, you know, for the social aspect of it. So they got to do something. I mean, there were what? Three or four games postponed in one day recently? That's a lot.
JARED QUAY: Switching from the court to the gridiron, Urban Meyer is tapped to be the new head coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars. This happened on the same day that a report came out about the hiring of minority coaches in the NFL, and it's not a good look. Supposedly, out of 327 full-time coaches and GMs that have been hired since 1990, only 40 of them were Black or brown, which is about 8%. How do we put pressure on this issue to make sure we don't keep this trend going?
RENEE MONTGOMERY: It's tough, because the NFL, you know, theirs are one of the leagues that they just don't have a lot of, like-- they don't have a lot of say, in a sense. Like, you know, the NBA, in the bubble, the players decided, look, we're not playing. It wasn't the owners that decided, it wasn't the GMs, it was the players that was like, we're not playing.
I don't know if the NFL is, like, down to band together like that. I think that's the only way things happen. You know? Like if the players force the issue, I don't think the fans can force the issue. I think it's going to have to be, like, coming from within. And so maybe if it's other coaches, other players, but the Rooney Rule, all of it seems a little bit off to have to try to bribe people to hire Black.
JARED QUAY: One of the Atlanta Dream's owners is about to be out of a job after the team drew attention to her opponent in the Senate, Raphael Warnock. Months later, the campaign clearly worked. So how do you feel like your voice has got, like, a new level of power, right?
RENEE MONTGOMERY: It's exciting just for the fact that we wanted to be blue here in Georgia, and that happened. And it's tough, because like everything, like, I was ready to party! I tell you, I went to TMZ the next day. I had all my Georgia pull-up shirt. You know, like I was ready to celebrate! And then, you know, stuff happened. But I want us to pay attention to the facts of the matter, like we won the presidential race. We won both Senate races. And we did it legally. We did it fairly, we followed the rules. So yeah, I wanted everybody to know about that. So I'm feeling good. I'm feeling really good.
JARED QUAY: We won! Like, I feel like Warnock, the reason why I like him so much is that it's a badass name right there. Warnock, that sounds like one of the-- he needs to be in "Game of Thrones." The House of Warnock takes the throne!
RENEE MONTGOMERY: House of Warnock!
JARED QUAY: And now you're an NBA analyst. Can you tell me, like, what's the jumper like that? Like, is it very different or similar?
RENEE MONTGOMERY: You know, basketball, it's all the same. So it didn't matter if I was covering men's college basketball, women's college basketball, the NBA, the WNBA. It's basketball. And when anyone asks me to talk about basketball, I'm very confident in it because I'm a student of the game. You know? Like, I'm that player that watched hours of tape. Like, before any team we play, you get your regular film that your coaches give you, you get your guard film, you get your personal film. And then I'm still watching my own film after that, because I'm that type of player that I like to study. So I would say being a student of the game, it's great to be an analyst at the highest level.
JARED QUAY: Definitely. I think that's amazing. I think you're 100% correct, and also that you got to have some witty jokes, some witty lines. You've got your witty--
RENEE MONTGOMERY: Listen, listen! Watch your head. I tell people that all the time, watch your head, because we got John Collins on our team, there's a lot of people getting dunked on. Just watch it, that's all. That's all I've been trying to tell people, if you're going to play the Hawks, watch your head.
JARED QUAY: Thank you again for rushing with us.
RENEE MONTGOMERY: Thank you for having me, Jared!
