Spurs assistant Becky Hammon to coach team in NBA Summer League
Spurs assistant Becky Hammon will become the NBA Summer League's first female head coach, reports Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News.
Hammon will run the team in Las Vegas summer league. Video coordinator Will Hardy will coach the Spurs in their summer league games in Utah.
San Antonio named Hammon an assistant coach in August 2014, making her the first full-time, full-salaried female assistant in not only NBA history, but in the history of all four major American professional sports. Hammon spent significant time around the Spurs organization in 2013 after tearing her ACL as a player with the WNBA's San Antonio Silver Stars.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich made the hire, and Hammon has become a trusted assistant within one of the NBA's most successful organizations. She worked heavily with San Antonio's point guards and shooters last season.
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“It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or woman,” Popovich told the New York Post in March. “It’s the same position, it’s the same pick-and-roll, it’s the same defenses and all that sort of thing. She’s very confident in the knowledge that she has and the way she approaches the game from a point-guard position. It’s been good to have her. It’s another perspective that we didn’t have before.”
Hammon, 38, was a six-time WNBA All-Star and also competed internationally for Russia in the 2008 Olympics as a naturalized citizen.
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