In my time around Becky Hammon I came away believing she will be an NBA head coach sooner rather than later. While leading the San Antonio Spurs to a Las Vegas Summer League title earlier this month she struck a balance between passionate and measured while working the media. She is also qualified and has been groomed in an organization with a track record of producing coaches and executives.
But equally as relevant is the inclusion of Hammon in the candidate-search process exploits a market inefficiency, and it won’t be long before a smart team realizes that.
Hammon is the first full-time female assistant coach in NBA history and has received the public praise of no less a figure than NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. Still, though, the truth is there will be some GMs whose old-school thinking will blind them to a female coach. But as we’ve seen many times over in the post-Moneyball era, it’s the teams that are open minded and willing to expand their search criteria that end up with the most qualified candidates.
In recent years Danny Ainge’s Celtics have hired MIT grads to advance their analytics findings, and the proliferation of guys like Daryl Morey around the league has broken the thought process that all NBA executives need playing or coaching experience. So teams can change.
What’s more, this has hardly been a boom time for traditional-pipeline hires. George Karl is a Hall of Fame coach but that hasn’t helped his relationship with DeMarcus Cousins. Brian Shaw was ear-marked for success by Phil Jackson but that didn’t stop his Nuggets team from quitting on him. Derek Fisher was a great player, but that hasn’t yet helped him relate to his Knicks players.
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Many will ask about players’ comfort levels around a woman head coach. But these questions are both limiting and nothing new, and were perhaps first raised when female reporters started entering locker rooms in the 1970s. In the end the journalists conducted themselves professionally, the players adjusted and now NBA reporting is better off with the insights of the likes of Doris Burke, Ramona Shelbourne, Lisa Salters and Jackie MacMullan.
Further along those lines, the NBA has been a leader in female inclusion. Michelle Roberts leads the NBA Players Association. And if players trust a female to negotiate with owners on behalf of their fiscal viability they’d trust a female with their on-court careers.
The league has also introduced two more female referees since Violet Palmer joined the league in 1997. From what I’ve seen up close, Palmer’s treatment is no worse (or better) than that of her male counterparts. That’s because she commands respect. Watching Hammon handle timeouts and practices, she is cut from the same cloth.
Also working in Hammon’s favour is, aside from chromosome composition, she has more in common with the average player than the majority of the league’s coaches. She’s active on social media, played 16 seasons in the WNBA, and is sixth all time in games played—not to mention second in made threes. She suited up professionally in Italy, Spain and Russia during WNBA off-seasons, expanding her knowledge of the pro game beyond North American borders.
She isn’t far removed from her playing days and at 38 is closer in age to most players than the average coach.
Plus, at the end of the day, players want two things from their coach. First, make them better players, thus making them more money. Second, help them win. There is no gender exclusivity to those skills.
The easiest succession plan would be in San Antonio after Gregg Popovich retires because she is already entrenched there, has had success winning the summer league, and because nobody questions anything the Spurs do. However, with LaMarcus Aldridge extending their window of contention Pop’s shelf life might be a bit longer than previously thought, and I’m not convinced she’ll be a free agent for another five years. The WNBA, NCAA or competing franchises might come calling sooner rather than later.
A bit of irony here is that Hammon could be the beneficiary of the proverbial old boys’ club that traditionally would have shut her out. Spurs disciples are littered around the league as organizations want to follow in San Antonio’s footsteps.
Former Spurs execs Danny Ferry and Rob Hennigan hired Mike Budenholzer in Atlanta and Jacque Vaughn in Orlando, respectively. So the fact that Popovich has hand picked Hammon and the high likelihood that some of her San Antonio brethren will be decision makers in the near future bodes well. The basketball brotherhood will soon adopt a sister in Hammon and whether the balance of the league is ready for her or not, they’d better get ready to compete against her.