Becky Hammon Got ’Em (1/21/21)
Before we get to the good stuff, I’d like to address new developments of the Kyrie Irving saga for the sake of editorial integrity. Last week, I wrote about 1000 words trying to make sense of this guy. His first presser since then has proven a lot of my assumptions at least partially correct, but I now retract anything that suggested he “should” retire. Firstly, he mentioned delegation as a new tool he’d use to balance his off-court social justice work so hopefully that’s sufficient for his goals. Secondly, he mentioned a primary reason for his absence was family related which I have 0 issues with. I know first-hand how it feels to put your life on hold for the sake of private family issues so he gets my empathy here.
Furthermore, I’m a little uncomfortable with some of the rhetoric I’ve seen/heard presupposing the state of his mental health. I know people like Stephen A. Smith and whoever this guy is have good intentions, but they’ve immediately jumped to him struggling mentally when he’s done nothing to suggest that’s the case. I’m no psychiatrist, but I do know that you can’t prescribe something like depression by watching a press conference. And if we look at what Kyrie actually said, his words were he “just needed a pause” which if anything is admitting he deals with his problems healthily. Tell me if I’m off-base here, perhaps I’m unwarrantedly triggered.
He still doesn’t get a pass for failing to handle his work life professionally in this instance, but otherwise let’s leave him be.
Iso, Iso!
Last month, San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich got himself ejected midway through the second quarter of a game against the Los Angeles Lakers. On his way out, he pointed to assistant coach Becky Hammon saying “you got ‘em,” and that put her in the history books as the first woman ever to head coach an NBA team.
Naturally this took over the sports news headlines for a couple of days and recycled the question asked every time her name is brought up: can Becky Hammon actually be a successful NBA head coach?
Short answer is duh, but let’s expound.
I’d say a good place to start is to delineate what a head coach actually does. I’m sure it’s more complicated than what I’m about to outline, but for simplicity’s sake I’ll break it down to general elements I’ve personally noticed from the good ones:
- Draft a scheme to fit personnel
- Develop players
- Motivate players
- Manage rotations and play-calling
- Make necessary adjustments
I know for a fact that the Spurs’ assistant coaches all help with scheme and game-to-game planning, and Becky was first brought-on for her talent as a development coach so let’s check those boxes off. For more evidence, she also notably coached the Spurs’ summer league team to a championship in only her second year with the organization. But if you disregard that as being a lesser achievement, let’s move to the one game she coached to give us a glimpse of her acumen in a true NBA setting. It’s only a little over a half’s worth of a sample, but I believe it tells enough to check off more boxes with greater confidence. I went and rewatched the full game and came away with these notes:
Pop coaching
- Game plan was clearly attack the rim on O, opportunistically double the Lakers’ stars on D
- Called time-out to grill a defensive miscue
- 13 point deficit at time of ejection
Becky coaching
- Stopped doubling and instead used Rudy Gay’s length as a defensive chess piece on both AD and LeBron
- Adjusted to what looks like a 1–3–1 zone in the 3rd that built a wall for driving lanes. Principle worked, but Lakers happened to make the shots
- Final score doesn’t indicate how competitive the game was
A hallmark of a good coach is knowing what to do when the game plan fails or the talent is outmatched. She made the necessary adjustments, but happened to fall short to a superior team. That being said, I’d say she passed that test.
The one unchecked box is player motivation. A common detraction is “will players listen to a female coach?” In my humble opinion, players who won’t shouldn’t make the team to begin with so it’s kind of a non-issue in practice. I’m all for questioning a coach if you think she’s wrong about a play or something to that extent, but dismissing her entirely would tell me all I need to know about your basketball IQ. You won’t make it in this league, simple as that.
Something to help ease qualms on that front is her actually having playing experience, which I’ll only describe briefly given I don’t think it’s a primary reason to hire a coach. She spent 15 years playing at the highest level domestically and internationally while being regarded as one of the best talents in women’s basketball history. Ex-point guards have a lengthy history of being hired as NBA head coaches, and sure there’s vast differences athletically between the NBA and WNBA, but the mind of an elite point guard is the mind of an elite point guard. And for what it’s worth, that’s more than what can be said about her current mentor’s playing resume.
She’s obviously qualified. Think of it this way, if you know anything about the San Antonio Spurs organization, you know that they don’t hire scrubs let alone keep one on staff for 6 years. Look at Coach Pop’s coaching tree; it’s littered with successful coaches from previous assistants in Mike Budenholzer to former Spurs players in Steve Kerr and Monty Williams. Having Pop’s co-sign should be more than enough for anyone:
“It’s been business as usual from the beginning. We didn’t hire Becky to make history. She earned it. She is qualified. She’s wonderful at what she does. I wanted her on my staff because of the work that she does. And she happens to be a woman, which basically should be irrelevant but it’s not in our world, as we’ve seen as it’s been so difficult for women to obtain certain positions.”
This brings up an important point about representation in our sports’ status quo. I liken this issue to a similar problem that has occured in competitive chess. There’s historically been an enormous gender disparity when it comes to top-level results, where in all of the game’s recorded history there’s only been one woman rated within the top 10 best players of any year. A cursory (read, false) analysis of this would claim that women just can’t keep up in this field, when in fact it’s largely been agreed that it’s a problem of participation more than anything. It makes sense too; if there’s a pool of 10000 men playing the game versus a pool of 10 women, odds are the best players will be men based on the math of having a larger sample size rather than any gender-specific advantage. Bringing this back to the NBA, there seems to be a similar stigma at play when it comes to hiring women to these elevated positions. There is nothing of substance that says they’re inherently unable to succeed in this boys club, they just haven’t been given the opportunities due to the relatively small sample size of candidates. By the way, that sample size is even more egregious than the chess example because while any woman can study and compete at open chess tournaments, NBA teams have to be willing to hire women — a greater superficial wall that could maintain deeper biases.
Coach Hammon reportedly was considered for the Indiana Pacers job, but was passed over for (*Googles name*) Nate Bjorkgren. Maybe the team just had a good feeling about this guy, because I matched up their respective resumes and I saw nothing to suggest he was a superior candidate. Though, this is also the franchise that just fired a coach who led his overachieving teams to the playoffs every year so maybe their judgment is fundamentally flawed. But I digress.
I won’t call for anyone’s job in particular, but coaching vacancies happen every year. Next go-round, let’s hope there’s an organization out there that feels like making a smart move. And even if she does get hired as a progressive PR stunt (likely), I’ll look past the pretense and applaud the part where she gets what she’s earned.
Pick & Pop
Pick: Utah Jazz
Pop: Golden State Warriors
It took a while but I’ve learned my lesson. Logic is overrated in this endeavor, I’m going with the choices that support my selfish purposes. I predicted the Jazz would have the best record in the league and the Warriors would miss the playoffs so there’s this week’s picks.
Throwback Jams
One of the hypest plays I can ever remember watching live:
2 for 1
Here’s some of this past year’s milestones of women bridging the gender divide in men’s sports leagues:
