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San Antonio Spurs # 10 DeMar DeRozan receives instructions from assistant coach Becky Hammon, who was replacing the ejected Gregg Popvich during the second half of action at the AT&T Center on December 30, 2020 in San Antonio, Texas. Ronald Cortes / Getty Images / AFP
San Antonio Spurs assistant coach Becky Hammon made history Wednesday by becoming the first woman to take charge of an NBA team when she took office after head coach Gregg Popovich was ejected.
Popovich received two technical fouls with 3:56 remaining in the second quarter of the Spurs’ eventual 121-107 loss to the visiting Los Angeles Lakers.
“I didn’t go into the arena thinking I’d be training tonight, but that’s the way things go and you cope, and I would have liked a different result,” Hammon said. “Overall, I would have loved to get a win tonight more than anything.
Hammon didn’t know she would be put in charge if Popovich was sent off from a game. How did you find out?
“Officially he pointed me out,” Hammon said. “That was it. He said, ‘You got’ em. That was it. Very pop-like.”
San Antonio was trailing by 11 points at the time Popovich was thrown.
“We all huddled together, (assistant coaches) Will Hardy, Mitch Johnson, ‘What can we do to help?’ Hammon said. “It was about what we can do to help win. … It was a great team effort, and they are in my ear giving me suggestions and helping me with substitutions and all that. When they release Pop, we all come together and become a kind of another team. “
Hammon, 43, has been an assistant coach for the Spurs since August 2014, the first woman to be paid for that job in a full-time official capacity. She had a 16-year career as a player in the WNBA, 1999-2006 with New York Liberty and 2007-14 with the San Antonio Stars, the latter team owned by the Spurs.
“It’s obviously a big deal, a substantial moment,” Hammon said of leading the Spurs on Wednesday. “I have been part of this organization. They moved me here in 2007, so I’ve been in San Antonio and part of the Spurs … organization with the Stars and everything for 13 years. So I have invested a lot of time and they have invested a lot of time in me to build and improve me. “
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