It’s no secret that Becky Hammon is a trailblazer.
The Aces coach, who will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023, is best known for what she accomplished following her WNBA career.
From joining the San Antonio Spurs as the first full-time female assistant coach in NBA history to winning the NBA Coach of the Year award in her first season with the Aces, Hammon has made winning her number one priority.
She became the first female head coach to win the NBA Summer League in 2015. When she took the helm with the Aces in 2022, she became the first rookie coach to win a WNBA championship, winning back-to-back titles last season.
But Hammon also made an impact on the court in the WNBA, playing a total of 16 seasons with the New York Liberty and San Antonio Silver Stars before retiring in 2014.
In recognition of her illustrious career, the league named her one of the WNBA’s top 15 players of all time in 2011 and one of the top 25 players of all time in 2021.
Here are the top five moments from Hammon’s WNBA career:
5. First All-Star appearance
Making an All-Star team might seem like a small milestone, but for Hammon it represented a complete overcoming of all odds. The 5-foot-6 guard went undrafted after a historic senior year at Colorado State, but he fought hard in training camp and made the Liberty roster in 1999.
Hammon had barely graduated from high school and was barely scouted, and she often said that it was her underdog story that made her “relatable” to fans at the time.
By 2003, Hammon’s importance to the Liberty was undeniable, as she had a breakout season averaging 14.7 points per game and was named to her first All-Star team.
The 2003 WNBA All-Star Game was held in front of a home crowd at Madison Square Garden in New York on July 12, but she did not play.
She tore her ACL in a game against the Detroit Shock on June 27, three days after leading the Liberty to a 21-point win over the Charlotte Sting.
Luckily, she would go on to become an All-Star five times in her career.
4. 5,000 points
Hammon became the seventh player to reach 5,000 career points when she scored 16 points in San Antonio’s 78–66 win over the Connecticut Sun on August 31, 2011. She was the highest scoring player that day, tying her with Tina Charles, who currently plays for the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream.
Hammon retired with 5,841 points, and even after the Silver Stars became the Aces, she remains third on the team’s all-time scoring list with 3,474 points.
3. Support your leaders
Hammon, who earned the reputation of “Big Shot Becky” for her competitive shooting, finished the 2007 season with a career-best average of 5.0 assists per game, the best in the league.
Her league-best passing percentage came in her first season with San Antonio after being traded from the Liberty, when she finished second in MVP voting and led the team to 20 wins, good for second in the Western Conference, after just 13 the year before.
2. 3-Point Contest Winner
Hammon seemed to have done it all, including winning the All-Star 3-Point Contest in 2009.
Hammon dominated the first and final rounds at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, defeating Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi to win the title.
Hammon was most effective in the second ruck of the final round, making four of his five attempts from the middle of the court and scoring 16 points.
Finalists Bird and Katie Smith managed just 12 points in the final round.
1. Postseason Heroes
Hammon played eight seasons with the Liberty and the team made the playoffs every year except for 2003 (the year she was injured) and 2006, her final year with the team.
Hammon reached the WNBA Finals in 1999, 2000 and 2002 with New York and in 2008 with San Antonio, but the best moment of her career may have been the year she missed the final stage of the postseason.
The Liberty reached the Eastern Conference Finals in September 2004, defeating the defending WNBA champion Detroit Shock, but they wouldn’t have been able to do it without Hammon.
She scored a playoff career-high 20 points and assisted on Bethany Donafin’s turnaround jump shot with 0.5 seconds left in the game.
The goal gave Liberty a 66-64 victory, and Hammon showed she had the ability to make the key pass long before she was nicknamed “Big Shot Becky.”
Contact Callie Lawson-Freeman at clawsonfreeman@reviewjournal.com. Follow @CallieJLaw on X.
