FanPost

Hammon scoreboard

The media has not done an appropriate job covering the hiring of Becky Hammon. Sure, we’ve heard more about this hire than any other assistant coaching hire in the NBA recently. How about highlighting the work of Chicago Bulls assistant, Jama Mahlalela? Providing publicity to an assistant coach, who may not be the top assistant, or even one of the three bench coaches, is certainly odd. What the media has constructed is the story of innovation, acceptance, and equality wrapped around the fact that the Spurs’ newest assistant coach is a woman.

The media stories allow for this woman-hire to be any woman. A narrative detailing capability, capacity and background are afterthoughts in this media onslaught. Specifically why Hammon was the right hire for the Spurs is generally overlooked. Perhaps we have so much trust in Pop that the details don’t matter. Perhaps we are mesmerized by the fact that Hammon is female. There are lots of questions to ask about an assistant coach hire that we simply don’t ask. We absolutely aren’t asking them of Hammon.

So, let’s briefly background Coach Hammon.

Becky Hammon is a 37 year old from South Dakota. As an All-American at Colorado State, Hammon averaged 21.92 points per game, scored a total of 2,740 total points, and recorded 538 assists. On her way to have her jersey retired at Colorado State, Hammon surpassed Keith Van Horn for the WAC’s all-time leading scorer.

To provide some context, we need to look no further than Coach Hammon’s bench-mates this season. Coach Jim Boylen, a prolific scorer for Maine averaged 21 PPG, almost a point per game shy of Coach Hammon’s average. Coach Chip Engelland eclipse the 1,000 point total while at Duke in the 1980s, over 1,000 short of Hammon’s total.

Somehow Hammon was undrafted into the WNBA, and joined the New York Liberty in 1999. Despite a career hampered by knee injuries, Hammon hit her 2000th WNBA point in 2005. In her best professional season Hammon averaged 5.0 APG and 18.8 PPG. A trade for the rights for Jessica Davenport landed Hammon in San Antonio playing for the Stars.

During her stint in San Antonio, which is still underway- with playoffs looming, Hammon earned the moniker of "Big Shot Becky", clearly in homage to Robert Horry’s great run as a Spur. In 2011 Hammon hit her 5,000th professional point.

If her career was over today, and it may be- by the time this is posted, Hammons stats read as such:

  • · 384 career WNBA games in 11 professional seasons
  • · 28 minutes per game
  • · 43% from the field
  • · 37% three point percentage
  • · 90% from the stripe
  • · 3.6 assists per game
  • · 13.3 points per game

Again, for the context, Coach Sean Marks, an NBA journeyman, averaged 2.8 points per game in his professional career. Coach Ime Udoka posted an impressive 5.2 PPG, with a career year in 2006-2007 with Portland where he averaged 8.4 PPG.

I’m posting these stats, both Coach Hammon’s and her peers for a purpose. Not just to show Hammon’s professional resume versus that of her unknown, uncovered bench peers, but also to prove that it isn’t always the physical that makes a great NBA coach or assistant. Hammon’s professional statistics are impressive. If you look around the league’s assistants, you will find that Hammon’s professional numbers compete against them all. Unless you have a Kurt Rambis or Nate McMillan on your bench, you’re likely to find coaches with stats similar to those of the Spurs’ staff. So, knowing that successful head coaches, and assist coaches don’t always excel in the pros, we can remove a possible counter argument to the Hammon hiring, "Hammon never competed at the NBA level, she couldn’t relate to the NBA player." I’d argue that most of the current NBA coaches didn’t compete either. Not at 2.8 points-per-game (Marks).

One Spurs assistant that Hammon should lock up with is Coach Ettore Messina. If we want to look to those with real skins on the wall, look no further. Coach Messina is a multiple Euro league champion with too many accolades to list here. His is a great basketball mind, who one can ensure is driving the undercurrent of success for this team. That is how Hammon is going to win, short term.

Clearly a direct line to Popovich is where her longer term success is going to come from. Connecting on more than the X’s and O’s with these players is an area where Hammon can excel. No better to learn from than Coach Pop.

The nuance of the below-the-rim game that is inherent in the WNBA is a staple of the Spurs’ game plan. Position, flow of the game, and ball movement are managed in the mind, not in physicality. Shaq made up for a lot of deficiencies in this area because he was so physically imposing. There aren’t many Shaq’s left. Dwight Howard is the closest thing the NBA has to a player so physically dominating at his position that he needn’t worry about the aforementioned skills. Unfortunately, he doesn’t use his body like Shaq, so the result is mixed. The below-the-rim, mental game makes the above-the-rim, physical game look silly.

So, if we’ve established that this current NBA, like most sports, is won above the shoulders, and that success before the ball gets to rim is directly correlated to the percentage of times the ball goes through the rim, than it makes sense to employ a specialist in below-the-rim basketball.

Coach Hammon is a quality hire. Whether she find success in the NBA as a coach, or proves to be a bust, the choice to hire will remain a solid decision. The novelty is there, sure, but under more scrutiny, we see a resume that stands up on its own. A resume that is scary-good. Hammon can scoreboard many of her contemporaries, leaving the "A woman can’t coach a men’s game" argument to collect more dust than a bottle of A-to-Z in Chateau D’ Pop’s cellar.

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