‘A huge deal:’ Hammon reflects on making history in Las Vegas summer league

Cameras in the San Antonio Spurs’ locker room captured Becky Hammon giving a celebratory speech as a scene prime to trigger the end credits of an inspirational movie unfolded.

“Good job. Just thank you for working hard, listening, being attentive,” Hammon said before she put her fist up to initiate the closing huddle.

The group of summer league Spurs sneakily reached up with uncapped bottles in their hands, creating a boisterous Gatorade shower for Hammon. The vignette of a drenched Hammon chuckling and grinning was eventually obscured from view as her players closed in, still cheering.

Hammon had just completed her run as the first female head coach in NBA summer league history, a feat she made that much sweeter by leading the Spurs to the 2015 Las Vegas Summer League championship title.

It’s been 10 years since that moment. Hammon and the team’s “Victory in Vegas” shirts would prove to be prophetic, as she went on to win back-to-back WNBA championships in her first two years as head coach of the Las Vegas Aces.

Now in her fourth year at the helm of the Aces, Hammon’s strongest recollection of her Summer League entrance is what you might expect of a perennial winner.

“I remember we lost our first game,” Hammon said in an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, recalling the details of a missed opportunity to close in a 78-73 defeat against the New York Knicks.

“And then I remember we won every game after that,” she added.

A reflection of the gender norms broken by Hammon’s success came as somewhat of an afterthought, a mindset she shared with legendary Spurs coach Gregg Popovich.

“That was obviously a huge topic, a huge deal. And I think it was something that both (Popovich) and myself tried to manage as well as we could,” Hammon said. “That was the thing. There was no handbook on it because it hadn’t been done. … So it was tough.”

Never a gimmick

Hammon said the “hoopla” surrounding her being a woman was unexpected even when Popovich hired her as a Spurs assistant the year prior, making her the first full-time female coach in any major American male sports league.

“I think overall, we did a really great job collectively as a group, navigating waters that hadn’t been navigated before,” Hammon said. “The athletes and the guys were never an issue, but it was always a fine line of my qualifications versus my gender. At the end of the day, I think actually both are important because of the climate and the history of women’s lack of opportunity in certain arenas.”

For Hammon, it meant having to take the high road on multiple occasions.

Before Hammon’s first game as a Spurs assistant, a reporter asked her about a critic who had referred to her hiring as a publicity stunt and said that NBA players would only listen to her if she were explaining how to bake cookies.

“I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie,” Hammon quipped.

She even had to dismiss questions about her being in the Spurs’ locker room as “silly,” saying that it was like asking a chef why he’s in the kitchen given her experience of being coached by men for her entire playing career.

After Hammon won the Las Vegas Summer league title, Popovich rejected the idea of Hammon being a “gimmick.” In a radio interview, he said that he hired her because she’d logged hours observing the Spurs’ coaching staff as she recovered from an ACL injury she suffered in 2013 while playing for the San Antonio Silver Stars.

“Obviously, she was a great player. As a point guard, she’s a leader. She’s fiery, she’s got intelligence, and our guys just respected the heck out of her,” Popovich said. “I don’t even look at it as, well, she’s the first female this and that and the other. She’s a coach, and she’s good at it.”

Eventually, the media scrutiny subsided.

“It got to the point where if I wasn’t at a game, it was kind of like, “Where’s Becky at?’ ” Hammon said. “Because it got normalized.”

Connections to Aces

After Hammon was presented the 2015 Summer league trophy, she noted that the group of Spurs didn’t click overnight.

“It was a grind,” Hammon said during the championship ceremony. “They’ve been together for 17 days. They really started to jell the last two or three games. They listened, and they played really hard for me.”

Hammon said there are similarities between that squad and the 2025 Aces, which are currently 9-11 in Hammon’s worst start since she joined the organization.

“Every team just goes at a different pace. Every team has a different identity. And I think that’s one thing that’s hard for outsiders and fans to understand,” she said.

Unprompted, Hammon addressed the idea that the team still has three-time MVP A’ja Wilson and should be dominating every game:

“They have to understand that every year you have to start over, And every year people come back different. People have grown. You’re adding new pieces. And it’s just a process.”

Despite the Aces currently sitting in ninth place in the 13-team WNBA standings, Hammon has high hopes for the postseason.

“We’re an average team right now. I think the record proves that, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t be one of the best teams when it’s all said and done,” she said, “Once playoffs start, it’s 0-0.”

Contact Callie Fin at cfin@reviewjournal.com. Follow @CallieJLaw on X.