WNBA teams continue to hire coaches with NBA experience and seven teams currently have men leading the charge. Meanwhile, in over 70 years of existence, no NBA team has ever hired a woman as its head coach. There’s also still only a small handful of women in the assistant coaching ranks in the NBA, headlined by Jenny Boucek and Lindsey Harding.
Due to her success with the San Antonio Spurs, Becky Hammon was widely expected to become the first woman to be hired as an NBA head coach. In 2021, she interviewed for a job with the Portland Trail Blazers. Recently, Dawn Staley also interviewed for a job with the New York Knicks, but the position went to Mike Brown.
Becky Hammon recently appeared on Post Moves with Candace Parker and Aliyah Boston. The topic of women coaching in the NBA inevitably came up. Hammon wasted no time dismantling many of the sexist stereotypes around the topic, such as that women don’t have the necessary experience because they didn’t play in the NBA and that they would be out of place in the locker room. She also proceeded to say something some people won’t like to hear: she isn’t sure if people in charge of NBA teams really want to hire women as head coaches.
Becky Hammon isn’t convinced NBA decision-makers truly want to hire women as head coaches
A lack of candidates has never been a real issue when it comes to women coaching in the NBA. Hammon began her search for a head coaching position with plenty of experience working under Gregg Popovich and immediately won a championship when she took over with the Las Vegas Aces. Dawn Staley is one of the most accomplished college coaches out there. Lindsey Harding played in the W and has had two assistant coaching positions in the NBA as well as a head coaching job in the G League. Jenny Boucek also played professionally before coaching in the WNBA for years, both as an assistant and a head coach, and as an assistant in the NBA.
Those are only a few of the qualified candidates who could have gotten an NBA head coaching job in recent years. But, as Hammon put it, “If you’re looking for a reason not to, you can find it, right?”
She followed up that comment by saying, “If they wanted it, it would be. I don’t know if they really want it.”
Hammon also made sure to stress that the problem has never been NBA players, but the decision-makers. Hiring the first woman head coach in NBA history comes with a lot of responsibility. A woman leading an NBA team would face unbelievable sexism and scrutiny, especially when the team loses. Not everyone is ready or willing to offer the support a woman stepping into that role will need.