WNBA legend Becky Hammon leaves Spurs to head Las Vegas Aces

WNBA legend Becky Hammon returns to the league as head coach of the Las Vegas Aces, the team announced. Several teams had made offers to lure Hammon out of the NBA, where he has served as assistant coach at the San Antonio Spurs since 2014.

“We are very excited that Becky will return to the Aces series as our head coach,” Aces President Nikki Fargas said. “His success in basketball as both a player and a coach is second to none and is fueled by a tenacious desire to be the best he can be. We have one of the most talented teams on the WNBA, and Becky is the absolute person to lead this team.”

Hammon is expected to end the NBA season at Spurs. Their last regular season game is due out on April 10, and they are currently ranked 10th in the Western Conference, which means a deep playoff series is unlikely. It is possible that Hammon may leave part of the training camp with the Aces, but he should get his NBA assignment done well in advance of the WNBA opening day on May 6th.

Not surprisingly, Hammon has finally become head coach – he’s been in several NBA roles in recent years and was reportedly a finalist at the Portland Trail Blazers gig last summer – but no one expected him to take over. In Vegas. First, there was no vacancy. Bill Laimbeer had served as Aces ’head coach since 2018 and had no expectations of him leaving. (He could now reportedly take the lead in the company.)

In addition, several WNBA teams are still looking for a new coach this season, including New York Liberty. Hammon spent the first eight seasons of his career in Liberty, playing three All-Star Games and one All-WNBA team as he helped the team into three finals.

However, the Aces decided to push Hammon and managed to get the contract to the finish line by offering a five-year contract that will make him the best-paid coach in the WNBA. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Hammon, who played in the Aces series while at the San Antonio Silver Stars, also gets a chance to coach one of the league’s most talented rosters.

A’ja Wilson, the 2020 MVP and one of the league’s best young players, is a limited free agent, but he’s sure to be back. Like veteran scorer Chelsea Gray, reigning sixth-year player Kelsey Plum, twice sixth-year player Dearica Hamby and former number one player Jackie Young. Aces will also have to make big decisions on free agents Liz Cambage, Angel McCoughtry and Riquna Williams.

But no matter what they do to the latter three, aces will come in 2022 with high expectations. They’ve made it to at least the semi-finals three consecutive seasons, but they only have one final appearance and zero prize money. Hammon hopes he is the coach who can help them break in and achieve the first championship in franchise history.

In addition to the staffing decisions he has made this winter, it will be interesting to see what style of play he implements. There have been many complaints about Laimbeer’s old-school, upside-down style, making the aces more reminiscent of his 1990s “Bad Boys” Detroit Pistons than a modern attack. The aces were the last 3-point attempts in the league in all four Laimbeer seasons, and they often had difficulty scoring in the playoffs as competition improved.

Hammon was a generous 3-point shooter at the time, and he has just spent nearly a decade learning from Gregg Popovich in San Antonio. It’s easy to imagine a future where Aces let Cambage walk as a free agency and build a more perimeter-based attack that emphasizes ball movement, highlights Gray and Plum, and takes advantage of Wilson as a lone big one.