Becky Hammon will make history today as the first woman to start an NBA season as a full-time assistant coach. Hammon will be a member of the San Antonio Spurs coaching staff.
The 37 year old had a decorated 16-year career in the WNBA, having most recently played for the San Antonio Stars before retiring earlier this year. During the last NBA season, Hammon attended Spurs practices, film sessions, and sat behind the bench at the home games after suffering a torn ACL that kept her from playing. Head coach Gregg Popovich asked her to join the team this past summer.
“When you’ve been around it, you know who can coach and who can’t coach,” Popovich said. “Becky is one of those people. She’s a Steve Kerr. She’s a Doc Rivers. She’s those kind of people. They have a feel for the game that they want to continue to participate in.”
Hammon has a reputation as a smart, hard-nosed, and tough-minded player. She made six All-Star teams and averaged 13.1 points in her WNBA career. She is the league’s all-time leader in assists (1,112) and 3-point field goals made (493), while ranking second in franchise history in points (3,442) and games (218). But she was chosen for her basketball acumen.
She is not concerned about being a woman coaching a men’s team:
“As far as women coaching men, it’s really silly. People ask me all the time, will there ever be a woman player in the NBA? To be honest, no. There are differences. The guys are too big, too strong and that’s just the way it is.”
“But when it comes to things of the mind, things like coaching, game-planning, coming up with offensive and defensive schemes, there’s no reason why a woman couldn’t be in the mix and shouldn’t be in the mix.”
As soon as the news was announced in the summer, congratulations and praise poured in. Among her fans is Nancy Lieberman, who made history in 2009 when she became the first woman head coach of a professional men’s basketball team as the coach of the Frisco, TX D-League team. “I’m happy to be a trail blazer,” Lieberman said. “But I’m ready to get an opportunity to coach in the NBA. Instead of people thanking me, I need to thank Becky.”
Popovich, for one, has no time for the hoopla surrounding his decision.
“Honestly, I didn’t realize it was gonna be this big of a deal,” he said. “People kind of went crazy, like we’ve saved the world from fascism or something,” he added, chuckling. “It was much more important to reward her—for who she is, what she’s done and what I believe she can do, than worry about the reaction of people.”
He continued, “I’m not going to do something that’s going to hurt my franchise just to have a gimmick. I think that we’ve built up enough credibility with the way we do things that people would understand that this was for real and that she had gravitas.”