When Gregg Popovich trudged through the tunnel of the AT&T center After he was dismissed Wednesday, Becky Hammon replaced him to become the first woman to serve as the head coach in a regular NBA game.
“Not heading for the locker room,” Popovich told reporters in a video conference before the San Antonio Spurs faced the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday. “Otherwise, he was emotionally engaged.”
As Popovich’s anger subsided, recognition of Hammon’s historic achievement began to spread across the country. And the man who added her to his team seven seasons ago wondered why anyone was surprised.
“It’s been business as usual from the start. We didn’t hire Becky to make history,” said Popovich. She deserved it. She is qualified. She is great at what she does. I wanted her on my staff for the work she does. And it turns out she’s a woman, which really shouldn’t be relevant, but she’s not in our world. As we have seen. It has been very difficult for women to get certain positions. For us it was like always. “
Popovich, champion five times, three times Coach of the year and member of Hall of FameHe said Hammon “knows more about the Lakers than I do” and that he was tasked with finding the defending champions who entered the game.
And Popovich, 71, insisted that there are many other women like Hammon, limited by social stereotypes, but not skills.
“Women do the same job just as well and better than men. That’s a fact. There’s no reason someone like Becky and other women can’t be a coach in the NBA,” she said. “On a larger scale it was therefore not a problem for me because I know her. And I know her capabilities, and I know her worth, and I know her future is very, very bright. I understand the attention she was getting, but in all fairness. I assumed most people already knew I was qualified to become an NBA head coach. “
Hammon, 43, went six times Star in the WNBA in its 16 seasons with Freedom of New York and San Antonio Silver Stars. She was the first woman to be hired full-time on an NBA coaching staff in 2014. Last season, there were eleven women on the NBA coaching staff across the league.
“There are many, many, many qualified women who are being held,” Popovich said. And it’s just the nature of the world. It changes slowly, but the sooner the better. ‘