Pickled Prunes wrote:Well, Hammond is not exactly like other Assistant coaches that didn't play in the NBA. She played professional Women's basketball at the highest level and excelled. It's not apples to apples, but she might be as close to having NBA playing experience as any woman ever will.
That might be true, and it isn't likely to be close enough to be relevant. As a comparison, I would guess there are 30+ mens leagues around the world that have a play style more similar to the NBA than the WNBA does, and yet, playing experience in any of those doesn't count for anything meaningful.
A big reason why NBA experience counts is because:
- Deep familiarity with the league style / plays / sets
- Deep familiarity with coaching style of the league
- Deep familiarity with the players currently in the league
- Years of building contacts and relationships of existing coaches within the league
- NBA players make so much money that you often have to make them head coaches or not hire them at all because there is no need for them to work for 1M a year.
You simply don't get these advantages with people in other leagues.
All of her coaching experience is in the NBA, so that's not like bringing in a coach from Europe or college. It might not look good when she's trying to get WNBA players to run NBA sets, but I think things translate down better than up.
How many assistant to head coaches in the NBA have had only one job as an assistant in one organization? It's a really, really small number. Most assistant to head coaches have 3x her time in the system and have coaches at MANY places.
Right or wrong, I honestly think there would be trust issues with a female HC. Imagine if Hammond were the Blazers HC right now instead of Billups. How long could she hold that locker room? I think she would have done a better job than Billups, but she would have been hearing a lot more crap than Billups is if she found herself in this same situation. I'm glad she avoided this. Stotts had them punching above their weight for years and no coach was going to come in and get this group to the third round. This was inevitable.
Who knows, that would depend entirely on the players she is coaching. Assuming she is skilled, I think most players would accept her, but hard to say and certainly a risk for a hiring team.