Becky Hammon will leave San Antonio at the end of the season to become the head coach of the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces (formerly her old club, the San Antonio Silver Stars).
The announcement came late on December 30, when the Spurs were playing back-to-back New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day games, so Hammon’s heart was still on his parent team.
Usually it wouldn’t be big news, but Hammon isn’t just an assistant coach for the Spurs or the entire NB. She is one of the longest-serving members of the San Antonio Spurs and is seen as a potential successor to Gregg Popovich, who is expected by many to be the league’s first female head coach.
While a future at the helm of the Spurs or elsewhere in the NBA is still possible, Hammon’s decision seems to put her even further away from her dream, so it’s worth seeing why she still made the decision.
First, this is a great opportunity for Hammon for a number of reasons. In an interview with the media, she herself said the same. The WNBA has never had the level of talent it has today, and although it has yet to receive mainstream media support, it already has many highly talented players. The league’s ratings have also improved, along with injecting marketable young talent and leading the league with the aging superstars we know well.
The Aces’ roster features 2020 MVP A’ja Wilson, as well as other greats like Liz Cambage and Kelsey Plum. Their team had the second-best record last season and would be the league’s top contender under Hammon.
If Hammon can play the modern offensive system he is good at, the last season’s 3-point shooting will have a big breakthrough. According to reports, Hammon will become the highest-paid WNBA coach of all time and will be involved in personnel decisions.
Becky turned her time in the NBA into a fantastic contract.
However, this is not what she originally wanted. She made it clear she was open to a job in the WNBA and briefly considered an offer to coach the Florida Gators, but said her goal was to get a chance in the NBA, and she did everything in her power to make it happen.
Hammon worked his way up and became one of Popovich’s key assistants, a safe way to get into the head coaching candidates. Mike Budenholzer, Brett Brown, Jacque Vaughn, James Borrego, Jim Boylen and Ime Udoka all got the chance to compete for head coaching after working under Pop.
Despite receiving interest from four teams and at one point rumored to be close to a deal with the Portland Trail Blazers, Hammon wasn’t so lucky, and we still don’t know if the team that approached Hammon really intends to hire her.
Although she has repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with what happened during the negotiation process, her decision to temporarily suspend her plans to become an NBA head coach must also have something to do with the Spurs. When all the other assistants, ranging from accomplished guys like Ettore Messina (another guy who never got a big job opportunity) to rising stars like Will Hardy, have all left and only Hammon has stayed, there must have been its reasons.
We’ll never know if she did it because she didn’t get an offer from an assistant anywhere else, or if she thought staying with Pop was the best way to get a head coaching job. Maybe she thinks she’ll be Pop’s successor, or just because she’s comfortable in San Antonio.
Popovich and the Spurs deserve credit for hiring Hammon, but do they really see her as a potential head coach? If they weren’t — or if Hammon thought they weren’t — her decision would make more sense.
It’s safe to say that the NBA clearly hasn’t treated Hammon completely fairly. It would be rather baffling if she had only been in San Antonio or had never been a head coach as an excuse to deny her an important role.
We know this is not a reasonable inference as there are many examples of male coaches getting head coaching jobs without any experience, or just working under Pop and then getting head coaching jobs. Fortunately, once she gets to Las Vegas, she has more opportunities to negotiate terms with the team.
However, will she really have a new chance to return once she leaves the NBA world? No head coach has ever transitioned from the WNBA to the NBA. Even former NBA players such as Michael Cooper and Bill Laimbeer who have had great success at the WNBA level.
Hammon is known as the leader of the Reform League uniform, so she may be open to the challenge of constantly forging new paths. The winds of change are blowing, more women are joining the NBA coaching ranks, and public opinion is more receptive to these reinforcements.