Well, that’s, interesting …

ESPN photo

ESPN.com is reporting that women’s basketball pioneer Nancy Lieberman will be the head coach of the Dallas Mavericks’ D-League affiliate team in Frisco, Texas.

Marc Stein reports:

Lieberman, an ESPN television analyst, is poised to become the first woman to be a head coach the D-League, which sent 20 players to the NBA last season and is widely regarded as the most scouted league in the world outside of the NBA.

Nelson’s ownership group has secured approval from the NBA to hire Lieberman to coach the yet-to-be-named team based in Frisco, Texas, which will serve as the Mavericks’ D-League affiliate next season.

A news conference is scheduled Thursday to introduce Lieberman as the first coach of the team that will begin play during the 2010-11 season in Frisco, a suburb about a half-hour north of downtown Dallas.

All coaching hires in the D-League have to be approved by the NBA, which owns and operates the 16-team league.

Here’s a link to the story: http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/nba/news/story?id=4623545

Now, I’m not sure what made the Mavs come to this conclusion. Perhaps Mark Cuban just wants to be in the limelight some more. Maybe it draws more female fans.

Do I think this will work? No.

Not to be gender bias, but I don’t see NBA athletes affording Lieberman the proper respect. I don’t see it at all. As it is, only a few NBA coaches get the adequate respect necessary. Now we expect Lieberman to win them over?

I credit Cuban and Mavs GM Donnie Nelson with doing something different. It is a curveball in every sense of the word, but in terms of drawing more female fans and spicing up the league a bit, it’s ingenious.

I would expect nothing else from Cuban, though I can’t help but think there are more qualified male candidates.

Lieberman is a great ambassador for the game of basketball. No doubt. She has proven she can coach and she obviously was a terrific player.

But I do think she’s out of her league, literally. She hasn’t even so much as held an assistant’s position for a men’s team. Not sure what sense this makes, honestly.

But we shall see. Cuban and Nelson are both smart basketball people who are passionate about the game. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, and, heck, I hope Lieberman proves me wrong.

I just don’t think this will work. At all.