Becky Hammon

• 1. Introduction

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  Becky Hammon walked into the San Antonio Spurs' practice facility as a player recovering from knee surgery. She left as a coach. On the 5th of August 2014, the Spurs hired her as a full-time assistant, making her the first woman to hold that role in a major American professional sports league. She had never been drafted. She had been told she was too small and too slow. And yet her path from Rapid City, South Dakota to the sideline of an NBA arena is one of the most improbable in the history of basketball. How does a player overlooked by college recruiters become a Hall of Famer? How does a three-time WNBA champion coach navigate accusations of discrimination while still winning? The answers stretch from a Nerf ball in a South Dakota driveway all the way to the Nevada desert.

• 2. The Girl From Rapid City

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  Rebecca Lynn Hammon was born on the 11th of March 1977 in Rapid City, South Dakota, in the American heartland she would later invoke in her own defense of her patriotism. She learned to dribble by playing Nerf ball with her older brother and father, and she was raised as a devout Christian. At Stevens High School she averaged 26 points, 4 rebounds, and 5 steals per game as a senior, earning the South Dakota Player of the Year award. She was also named South Dakota Miss Basketball as a junior. Despite those numbers, college recruiters dismissed her as too small and too slow. It took a Colorado State assistant coach to see past those assumptions. She graduated from high school in 1995 and was also voted female class athlete by her graduating class, then headed to Fort Collins to play for the Rams.

• 3. Colorado State and a Record Book

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  Hammon scored 2,740 points as a Colorado State Ram, setting the program's all-time record for points, points per game (21.92), field goals made (918), free throws made (539), three-point field goals made (365), and assists (538). Those numbers made her a three-time All-American and earned her the Colorado Sportswoman of the Year honor. In the 1998-99 season alone, she led the Rams to a 33-3 record and a Sweet Sixteen appearance in the NCAA Tournament, and she was named the WAC Mountain Division player of the year. Her scoring total also surpassed Keith Van Horn of Utah as the WAC's all-time leading scorer. In 1999, the Women's Basketball Coaches Association gave her the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award, given to the best senior player under 5 feet 8 inches. Her number 25 jersey was retired at Moby Arena on the 22nd of January 2005.

• 4. Big Shot Becky

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  Signed to the WNBA on the 12th of May 1999, Hammon joined the New York Liberty despite going undrafted, backing up starting point guard Teresa Weatherspoon before eventually taking over the starting role after the 2003 season. She became a co-captain alongside Vickie Johnson and Crystal Robinson in 2004. After a trade to the San Antonio Silver Stars on the 4th of April 2007, she posted career-high averages of 18.8 points and 5.0 assists per game, leading the league in assists that year. In 2008 she scored 35 points in a Western Conference Finals game against the Los Angeles Sparks, helping the Silver Stars reach the WNBA Finals, where they fell to the Detroit Shock 3-0. Her ability to deliver in pivotal moments earned her the nickname "Big Shot Becky," a riff on "Big Shot Bob," the nickname belonging to San Antonio Spurs forward Robert Horry. On the 31st of August 2011, she became the seventh player in WNBA history to reach 5,000 career points. She played 16 WNBA seasons and earned six All-Star selections and four All-WNBA selections before retiring in 2014.

• 5. The Russian Flag Question

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  In 2008, after learning she would not be invited to try out for the United States national team, Hammon became a naturalized Russian citizen and declared for Russia's Olympic roster. She had played for CSKA Moscow during WNBA off-seasons, and the team's coach, Igor Grudin, was also Russia's national team director. The decision drew sharp criticism at home. Then-U.S. national coach Anne Donovan publicly questioned her patriotism, saying: "If you play in this country, live in this country, and you grow up in the heartland and you put on a Russian uniform, you are not a patriotic person in my mind." Hammon answered directly: "You don't know me. You don't know what that flag means to me. The biggest honor in our classroom was who could put up the (American) flag, roll it up right, not let the corners touch the ground." She also said she played for Russia primarily to compete on the Olympic stage. Her Russian citizenship did triple her salary with CSKA Moscow and made her eligible for a $250,000 gold-medal bonus from the Russian government, or $150,000 for silver. Russia won bronze. Donovan later softened her position, acknowledging that Hammon had made "a great business decision" and that the U.S. team had not asked Hammon to try out, which she called the real source of her objection. Hammon also competed for Russia at EuroBasket 2009, the 2010 World Championship, and the 2012 Olympics.

• 6. Spurs and History Made

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  A torn left anterior cruciate ligament on the 13th of July 2013 set Hammon on the road to coaching. During the year she spent rehabilitating, she attended Spurs practices, coaches' meetings, and games, contributing opinions when invited. Head coach Gregg Popovich noticed. At the hiring announcement in August 2014, Popovich said in a public statement: "I very much look forward to the addition of Becky Hammon to our staff. 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." The praise of players carried equal weight. Pau Gasol wrote an open letter specifically about Hammon, stating: "I've played under two of the sharpest minds in the history of sports, in Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich. And I'm telling you: Becky Hammon can coach. I'm not saying she can coach pretty well... I'm saying: Becky Hammon can coach NBA basketball. Period." On the 3rd of July 2015, she was announced as head coach of the Spurs' summer league team, and on the 20th of July 2015 she led them to the Las Vegas Summer League title, the first female head coach to win that tournament. Then, on the 30th of December 2020, Popovich was ejected during a loss to the Los Angeles Lakers and Hammon took over, becoming the first female and first Russian acting head coach in NBA history. In 2021 she was the first woman to be a finalist for a permanent NBA head coaching job, interviewing with the Portland Trail Blazers. That position went to Chauncey Billups.

• 7. Dynasty in Las Vegas

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  Hammon was hired as head coach of the Las Vegas Aces on the 31st of December 2021, the first WNBA coach to earn over $1 million per year. In her first season she guided the Aces to the 2022 WNBA championship, becoming the first rookie head coach to win the title. The following year the Aces repeated as champions in 2023, making Hammon the first coach to win back-to-back WNBA titles in 20 years. A third championship followed in 2025, with the Aces sweeping the Phoenix Mercury. She received the WNBA Coach of the Year award in her rookie season. On the 12th of August 2023, she was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame for her contributions as both player and coach. That same year, a multi-month WNBA investigation found she had violated the league's workplace respect policies in her treatment of Aces player Dearica Hamby, who alleged discrimination after informing the team of her pregnancy in August 2022 and who was subsequently traded to the Los Angeles Sparks in January 2023. The investigation interviewed 33 people and reviewed texts and emails; it resulted in a two-game suspension for Hammon and the loss of the Aces' first-round 2025 draft pick. Hamby later filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court on the 12th of August 2024, and that lawsuit remains ongoing.