There is not any mistaken reply for Becky Hammon.
But there may quickly be a troublesome, life-changing choice.
Hammon, the reigning WNBA champion and coach of the 12 months with the Las Vegas Aces, is reportedly within the combine to grow to be the subsequent head coach of the Toronto Raptors. Sportsnet reported on Tuesday that Hammon didn’t formally interview with the workforce.
The transfer would make her the primary girl to grow to be the full-time head coach of a significant North American males’s sports activities workforce. But it could additionally imply leaving the WNBA, a league whose reputation is booming and one during which she spent 16 years as a participant.
Asked about NBA potentialities at a press convention final week, Hammon mentioned “it is a number of chatter at this level” and that she’s “not far alongside within the course of with any workforce.”
“If it occurs, it occurs. If any individual desires me, you’ll be able to come inform me. You know the place to seek out me,” Hammon mentioned. “But my energies and focus are within the Las Vegas Aces 100 per cent. I imply, I’m on the cellphone with my agent so much, however as I [said] I’m tremendous, tremendous comfortable right here. I like working right here.”
Kayla Alexander, a two-time Canadian Olympian, spent two years as Hammon’s teammate with the San Antonio Stars — the franchise later relocated to Las Vegas — in 2013 and 2014.
The Milton, Ont., native instructed CBC Sports she has fond recollections of enjoying with Hammon and believes she would make a very good NBA coach.
Chip on her shoulder
Hammon additionally spent eight years as an assistant to legendary San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich.
“Regardless of her choice, we’re gonna all profit from it,” Alexander mentioned. “Because whether or not she’s lending her expertise and her superb abilities to the WNBA and serving to to develop our league, or if she’s lending it to the NBA and breaking limitations and proceed to be the inspiration, it is a win-win for all of us.”
At this level, Hammon is used to being handed over. She was an undrafted level guard who changed into a six-time WNBA all-star. Yet in 2008, greater than midway by means of her profession, Hammon, of Rapid City, S.D., did not a lot as obtain a tryout invitation to the U.S. girls’s Olympic basketball workforce.
She as a substitute competed at these Beijing Olympics for the nation the place she performed abroad as a naturalized Russian citizen, profitable bronze.
Most lately, she’s been shut out of NBA head teaching jobs regardless of quite a few interviews. And so she instructed Time Magazine lately that when contemplating whether or not to go away the WNBA for the NBA, her happiness is most essential.
“I like being right here. I like being again on the ladies’s facet. I do not want the stamp of approval from the NBA,” she mentioned.
More particularly, Hammon seems infatuated along with her present scenario.
“I like my workforce. I actually love my workforce and similar to their presence, how they’re as folks,” she mentioned in final week’s press convention. “They’re good human beings.”
Hammon, left, spent eight years alongside Popovich in San Antonio. (Nick Wagner/The Associated Press)
‘Becky Hammon can coach’
In a 2018 Players’ Tribune article, Pau Gasol, who performed underneath Hammon with the Spurs, vouched for her to grow to be an NBA head coach.
Gasol cited a selected tweak throughout a pick-and-roll drill that stayed with him for example of Hammons’ experience.
“Becky Hammon can coach. I’m not saying she will be able to coach fairly nicely. I’m not saying she will be able to coach sufficient to get by. I’m not saying she will be able to coach nearly on the degree of the NBA’s male coaches. I’m saying: Becky Hammon can coach NBA basketball. Period,” Gasol wrote.
Coincidentally, Gasol will enter the Basketball Hall of Fame this summer time alongside each Hammon and Popovich.
Recently, the WNBA suspended Hammon two video games for the alleged mistreatment of participant Dearica Hamby throughout her being pregnant. Hamby mentioned she felt “traumatized” by the “disgusting feedback” made by Hammon, who strongly denied the allegations.
Still, the incident could also be a strike towards Hammon’s Raptors candidacy. For what it is price, Alexander spoke extremely of her time with Hammon when the previous was a rookie and the latter a veteran.
“She was a competitor on the court docket. She pushes you. She was an excellent teammate. I felt nicely taken care of by her once I was in San Antonio and I want her nothing however the very best,” Alexander mentioned.
WATCH | Hammon guides Aces to 1st WNBA title:
Las Vegas Aces seize first WNBA title
Las Vegas Aces defeat Connecticut Sun 78-71 in recreation 4 to assert a franchise first WNBA title Sunday.
Noelle Quinn, the Seattle Storm head coach who received the 2020 championship and a lead assistant for Canada’s girls’s workforce, agreed there would not be one right reply for Hammon.
“It’s superb that Becky’s all the time within the mixture of the teaching availability or jobs within the NBA. It simply speaks to her work ethic, the truth that they perceive and know that she’s greater than succesful. I like that for us as girls, as coaches and the illustration issues there,” she mentioned.
However, Quinn additionally famous that it is essential for girls to proceed teaching within the WNBA as nicely. Women at the moment comprise 14 of 24 head coach and GM positions within the league.
“I like the place we’re at in girls’s basketball and I would like us to proceed to develop and get higher and ensure we’re within the higher echelon of leagues on the planet,” she mentioned.
In the top, Alexander mentioned, Hammon ought to do what’s finest for her household.
“Selfishly, I would like her to have the ability to do each. I might love for her to have the ability to keep within the W, proceed to present again and develop the league that she helped construct,” she mentioned. “At the identical time, I feel she’s nicely deserving to be one in all the primary feminine head coaches within the NBA.
“But,” Alexander joked, “then if she have been to do this, I do not suppose she would have a life.”
