Becky Hammon, who is retiring this month from a 16-season playing career in the W.N.B.A., will join the San Antonio Spurs as an assistant coach next season, the N.B.A. team announced Tuesday.
Hammon, 37, becomes the second woman to serve on an N.B.A. coaching staff. The first was Lisa Boyer, who was a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers staff in the 2001-2 season. Boyer, however, worked part time and was not paid by the team. Hammon has been hired to a full-time, paid position.
'Having observed her working with our team this past season, I'm confident her basketball I.Q., work ethic and interpersonal skills will be a great benefit to the Spurs,' Coach Gregg Popovich said Tuesday in a statement.
Hammon had spent much of the 2013-14 N.B.A. season around the Spurs organization in an unofficial capacity. With a coaching career in her sights, she was often present at practices, coaching meetings and film review sessions and watched games from behind the Spurs bench as the team went on to win its fifth championship.
'We really respect her as an individual and as a player, and she wanted to participate so we put her in all our coaches' meetings and at our practices just to see how she reacts to it all,' Popovich told The San Antonio Express-News in February. 'It's been great having her around. Becky's a lifer. She wants to keep playing. She wants to see how she likes coaching. We love her to death.'
Hammon, a point guard, was a six-time All-Star selection in the W.N.B.A., and in 2011 she was named one of the 15 best players in league history. She played eight seasons in New York after signing with the Liberty in 1999. She has spent the last eight seasons with the San Antonio Stars. She averaged 8.6 points and 4.2 assists in 27 games for the Stars this season.
A native of Rapid City, S.D., Hammon became a naturalized Russian citizen in 2008 so that she could play for the country's national basketball team in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.
Post By http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/sports/basketball/spurs-hire-becky-hammon-as-nbas-first-full-time-female-coach.html
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