Becky Hammon’s name is getting hot at the perfect time. The iron is hot, but don’t be so quick to strike it.
In an NBA coaching landscape that sees Stan van Gundy on his third team, Scott Skiles on his third team, and George Karl on his SIXTH team, it’s really hard to get excited about potential new head coaches. You’ve seen most of them before — even Byron Scott, who’s on his fourth team (and potentially fifth when he inevitably gets fired by the Lakers).
The NBA coaching horizon isn’t as completely stale as month old bread. Last year, there were four rookie head coaches — David Blatt, Tyrone Corbin, Derek Fisher (for better or worse), and Steve Kerr. If that last name sounds familiar, it should. His team won the NBA Championship last season.
Becky Hammon is a name you can get excited over.
When you consider that the NBA (more than some sports) is a copycat league, the powers that be in team offices across the NBA have taken notice of Hammon’s work as the San Antonio Spurs assistant coach who won the Las Vegas Summer League over the weekend. Right now, every team in the hunt for the next Steve Kerr may want to start putting Hammon’s name at the top of the list.
Before this gets too crazy of a conversation, maybe it’s a good idea to temper expectations. Believing that Becky Hammon will pull a Steve Kerr in her first year whenever she gets her first NBA head coaching opportunity may be a little nuts. It’s hard to imagine that Hammon will inherit the same kind of situation that Kerr did — a team ripe for a championship with an insanely talented roster that suffered almost no injuries all season.
Not even Gregg Popovich — her superior — is that lucky.
It’s hard to think about teams that are going to need a new head coach in 2016-2017 when we haven’t played a game in 2015-2016. If you want raw speculation, however, Becky Hammon’s name could come up in the GM offices in Brooklyn and Minnesota (provided Flip Saunders doesn’t want to give up that chair). Hammon’s name is definitely going to be discussed by Phil Jackson at Madison Square Garden and Mitch Kupchak in Los Angeles.
(Here’s a nickel’s worth of free advice, Becky. Don’t take the job of the last two places I mentioned. Enjoy the expensive dinner, but don’t even get roped into those train wrecks.)
Becky Hammon detractors — the ignorant ones, mind you — will point to her gender. You know it’s going to happen, so let’s just get it out of the way, now. Yes, Hammon spent seven years with the New York Liberty and another seven with the San Antonio Stars, but here’s where this argument can be silenced:
Basketball is basketball. The last time I watched women’s basketball, the pick-and-roll, screen-and-roll, post up, three point shot, and the mid-range game were all used. If I recall correctly, all of those things are in the men’s game, too. Popovich agrees:
“It’s the same game. Becky knows what to do on a pick-and-roll just as much as what Tony Parker knows.”
Now, let’s address the more reasonable issue: lack of head coaching experience. That argument I will grant more than the ignorant, idiotic, gender-based issue. Becky Hammon has never coached an NBA team before her leading the Spurs summer league team to the title, but she’ll be okay when it’s her time. She’s only learning from one of the greatest basketball coaches in the last 20 years in Gregg Popovich and one of the most fundamental players of all time in Tim Duncan.
She already has a great rapport with current Spurs players as explained by Jonathan Simmons — who won the NBA Summer League Championship Game MVP award:
“I really love her, and I’ve only known her a couple days. She’s a real cool coach. She’s a player coach. That’s something we all like.”
Words like that from a player — who, granted, only played in the D-League last year — is reason to take notice. Who knows how Becky Hammon will be with a superstar player like Carmelo Anthony if (God, forbid) she ends up as head coach of the Knicks next year or (please, God, no) Kobe if she’s the Lakers head coach and Kobe hasn’t retired to play for FC Barcelona.
Let’s imagine the best possible scenario for Hammon: the Minnesota Timberwolves. Imagine a universe where Flip Saunders is neither the GM or the head coach of that team, and Becky Hammon is coaching a roster made up of Ricky Rubio, Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine, and Karl-Anthony Towns. If you’re telling me you wouldn’t sign up for NBA League Pass to watch every T-Wolves game, I’d say you’re lying. (By the way, if Hammon is the coach of the T-Wolves, and she gets ANYTHING out of first round bust Anthony Bennett, she deserves to be coach of the year just based on that.)
Is Hammon ready to be an NBA head coach? Yes. Is she rushing into it? Not at all. She’d be perfectly happy continuing to be Pop’s right hand woman on the bench with the Spurs, and honestly, why wouldn’t she be? She gets to pick the mind and learn from the best coach in the NBA. Milk that as long as you can, Becky. Don’t be in a rush. The NBA isn’t going anywhere.
Hammon told Sports Illustrated that “You never know what your journey has in store. You just work hard and keep your nose to the grind. You do things the right way, you treat people the right way, and good things happen.”
Well, we already know one thing Hammon does better than Popovich: give an interview.
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