On Tuesday afternoon the San Antonio Spurs did what the San Antonio Spurs do best: make history quietly.
The Spurs announced via the team website that they have hired WNBA star Becky Hammon as an assistant coach.
While there have been two previous females who have had assistant roles in some capacity with NBA teams — Lisa Boyer with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Natalie Nakase with the Los Angeles Clipper summer league team — Hammon is believed to be the first female hired as a full time NBA assistant, and for that matter, a full time female assistant in any of the four major American sports including the NFL, MLB and NHL.
Here’s more from Ben Rohrbach of Yahoo Sports:
While University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Lisa Boyer worked as a volunteer assistant on the Cavaliers staff in 2001-02, and Natalie Nakase just wrapped up a stint as an assistant with the Los Angeles Clippers’ Las Vegas Summer League squad, Hammon, 37, is believed to be the first female officially hired as an assistant coach in NBA, NFL, MLB or NHL history. Hammon announced plans to retire from the WNBA following her 16th season in the league, including the last eight as point guard of the San Antonio Stars.
The Stars have five games remaining on their regular-season schedule, and the playoffs extend into late September. Whenever Hammon wraps up her WNBA playing career, she will make NBA history.
“I very much look forward to the addition of Becky Hammon to our staff,” Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich said in the release. “Having observed her working with our team this past season, I’m confident her basketball IQ, work ethic and interpersonal skills will be a great benefit to the Spurs.”
In the last year, the NBA has overcome a multitude of social issues, and has done so in an incredibly progressive and accepting fashion. First was Jason Collins, becoming the first active openly gay athlete in American professional sports history. And just this past week, Violet Palmer, also the first female referee in the NBA, came out as gay as well. Let’s not forget about Donald Sterling, who rallied the leagues players, coaches and fans into united form against racism.
And of course, leave it to the Spurs to blaze the trail:
A team seemingly always ahead of the curve in a trailblazing league, the Spurs also added two-time Euroleague Coach of the Year Ettore Messina to its staff this summer. In addition to the Italian coaching legend, the Spurs staff also features the first native African to be named an NBA assistant (Ime Udoka) and the first New Zealander to play in the league (Sean Marks).
It’s a worldly bunch coaching a roster that currently features players from nine different countries, and considering the Spurs played basketball as beautifully as we’ve seen it during their title run, perhaps other teams will follow their lead. Hammon’s hiring, in particular, opens the door to half the world’s population.
“I think it is fantastic,” former D-League assistant Stephanie Ready — who became the first female coach in a men’s professional league upon joining the Greenville Groove in 2001 — told Yahoo’s Marc J. Spears following the Hammon announcement. “Maybe this will finally silence the naysayers. If Coach Pop thinks she’s capable and worthy, there is no bigger stamp of approval in today’s game.”
Onto more from around the NBA
Grantland’s Zach Lowe dives into the NBA’s newly found ‘big’ problem: “The NBA market is always evolving, and sometimes it’s hard to separate real trends from random noise. Free agency is a business, but it’s a nontraditional one with weird anticompetitive restraints, and sometimes it appears more like 30 schizoid teams acting in unconnected ways. The restrictive collective bargaining agreement and uncertainty over how fast the cap will jump, and how high, have added layers of confusion. Some trends have emerged over the last three summers. The price of shooting at all positions has gone up. And one player type has become less and less desired, to the point it may already be a market inefficiency: the power forward who can’t shoot 3s and can’t protect the rim or provide real fill-in minutes at center. There are good reasons behind the price drop. Protecting the rim is a necessity for any team with championship ambitions. If one big man can’t manage, the other has to carry the load, and real rim protectors tend to be large humans who hang near the rim on offense. That means any big man who can’t protect the rim defensively had better be able to get the hell out of the way on offense, working as a long-distance threat around the pick-and-rolls that dominate the NBA.”
Coach K has narrowed Team USA down to 16 finalists for 12 remaining spots: “The finalists include three Olympic gold medalists from 2012 – Anthony Davis (New Orleans Pelicans), Kevin Durant (Oklahoma City Thunder) and James Harden (Houston Rockets); three 2010 World Championship gold medalists – Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors); Durant and Derrick Rose (Chicago Bulls); and the addition of Mason Plumlee (Brooklyn Nets) to the 2014-16 USA National Team roster and to the list of finalists participating in Chicago. Plumlee began the Las Vegas training camp as a member of the 2014 USA Select Team. Selected USA World Cup Team finalists were DeMarcus Cousins (Sacramento Kings);Curry; Davis; DeMar DeRozan (Toronto Raptors); Andre Drummond (Detroit Pistons); Durant; Kenneth Faried (Denver Nuggets); Harden; Gordon Hayward (Utah Jazz); Kyrie Irving (Cleveland Cavaliers); Kyle Korver (Atlanta Hawks); Damian Lillard (Portland Trail Blazers); Chandler Parsons (Dallas Mavericks); Plumlee; Rose; and Klay Thompson (Golden State Warriors). “The ending to our Las Vegas training camp with the injury to Paul George was very emotional for everyone involved in USA Basketball. I very much appreciate the outpouring of support Paul and USA Basketball has received the past couple of days from the basketball world. Past Olympic coaches and some of our past Olympic and World Championship players have reached out offering their continued support and that’s very important. Paul’s injury was an extremely unfortunate occurrence; it was truly a freak accident. We’re all very pleased that his recovery is going well,” said Colangelo.”
For the first time LeBron James met with his new coach and GM in Cleveland: “James has been extremely busy since announcing his decision to sign with the Cavs last month. He went on promotional trips for Nike to Brazil and China while shooting a movie in New York. James met face-to-face with team owner Dan Gilbert before announcing his free-agent choice and had communicated with Blatt by text since signing. Blatt saw a thinner James at their meeting. James has been focused on cutting his weight by reducing his carb intake since the end of the Finals, and he has lost more than 10 pounds. James’ thinner frame was noticeable in some photos he posted on his Instagram account earlier this week. It has been a busy week for the Cavs. Mike Miller visited and is soon expected to sign a two-year, $5.6 million deal. Cleveland also hosted veteran free-agent forward Shawn Marion on Monday and is hoping to sign him to a contract as well.”
Ben Baroff is a basketball journalist who blogs for SheridanHoops.com. Follow him on Twitter here.