VMaybe everything would have turned out very differently if the two hadn’t sat next to each other on the plane on their way back from London in the summer of 2012. She: the best player in a team who never quite kept what was promised of her. He: one of the best basketball coaches of his generation. The conversation was very lively. Because they talked about everything: politics and good wine. And about Russia, for which in the days before – although American – she stood for the second time at the Olympic Games.
At some point it was also about basketball. But only because Gregg Popovich, who at that time had already won the NBA championship four times with the San Antonio Spurs, has a tendency to lure his counterparts out of the reserve with small provocations: “If you were to work as an assistant coach for me, you would tell me the truth every time? ”he asked. “I don’t see why you’d ask me otherwise,” said Becky Hammon, who was then playing for the San Antonio Silver Stars in the WNBA women’s league. Years later she remembered his answer: “Good. I don’t want a bunch of yes-men. “
The scene from the plane back to Texas became the prelude to an unusual career. It began when Hammon tore his cruciate ligament in his left knee a year later and was hired as an intern in Popovich’s coaching team during rehab. She has attended tactical discussions and video analysis sessions, and has been behind the bench for home games. And when Popovich asked her opinion, she told him.
Assertiveness in the men’s league: Becky Hammon
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Image: AFP
She passed the most important test at the time. “If you’ve been there long enough, then you know who can coach and who can’t,” Popovich later cited as the reason why he had Hammon hired in 2014 on a permanent basis. “Becky is one of those people. She is a Steve Kerr. She is a Doc Rivers. She’s one of those people who have a feel for the game. ”Such a statement would, however, only be half as meaningful if the person concerned had the usual set of chromosomes. Which is why Becky Hammon has been accompanied by both skeptical looks and big headlines for a few years.
“Becky Hammon makes history”
Just like in early January at Spurs’ home game against the Los Angeles Lakers, when Popovich messed with the referees in the first half, was expelled from the hall and the 43-year-old took over his post for the rest of the game. “Becky Hammon is making history,” trumpeted America’s sports media about the moment when a woman took the lead in an American men’s league for the first time. Afterwards, Popovich and Hammon turned out to be an excellent duo. She acknowledged the attention rather calmly (“Sure, that’s something special, but I don’t like to think about the big picture”). And he classified the moment as part of a normal development: “We didn’t hire Becky to make history. She worked it out for herself. She is qualified. Yes, she happens to be a woman. But that should be irrelevant. “
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