Breaking down barriers: Hammon, Lieberman setting new NBA norm

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SACRAMENTO -- The NBA preseason has very little meaning in the grand scheme of things. It’s a glorified practice, especially when you face the San Antonio Spurs minus Gregg Popovich, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Boras Diaw and Tim Duncan.

Every game has subplots. Marco Belinelli is facing his former team, as is Ray McCallum and Jimmer Fredette. And every once in awhile there is something bigger.

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As the Sacramento Kings and San Antonio Spurs warmed up on the court, two groundbreaking women sat courtside for a friendly chat.

Legends in the building

Last season, Becky Hammon became the first female assistant coach in NBA history which opened a door for Hall of Fame player Nancy Lieberman to get her first shot in the league after being the face of women's basketball for nearly four decades.

[REWIND: Spurs hire WNBA's Hammon as assistant coach]

For the first time, two female NBA assistant coaches sat courtside waiting for their teams to take the floor for a game. Photographers rushed to shoot pics of the moment and when they went away, the two fielded a handful of questions in tandem.

Forever the point guard, Hammon refused to take credit for her monumental achievement. Instead, she chooses to pass the accomplishment to those before her.

“Nancy and the older players opened doors for me a long time ago, so I’m really riding the shoulders of other women,” Hammon said. “If there’s no WNBA, which their generation fought so hard to get for my generation, then we’re probably not having this conversation.”

Being first has its perks. Hammon is the groundbreaker. She is the one that will forever be linked to opening the door for female coaches, but it easily could have been Lieberman.

Lieberman is a pioneer in the women’s game. She began her career playing for Team USA at the 1975 Women’s Pan Am games as a 17-year-old star. She helped lead the team to a gold medal and took home the silver at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal the following year.

Known as "Lady Magic," Lieberman entered the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame in 1996 and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999.

The historical context of what they have accomplished is not lost on Lieberman. She would have loved to be first, but being second also carries incredible weight.

“Just so everybody knows, we were never in a contest,” Lieberman broke in. “If Jackie Robinson makes it in Major League Baseball and there’s no Larry Doby, we have failed. We have won because Becky did open a door and I’m really proud of her not only as my sister and my friend, but as a professional. But the real sense of accomplishment in winning is that less than a year later, there’s somebody else in the league.”

A flair for the dramatic, Lieberman is hopeful that with two female assistants, the door is open. You can’t say that Hammon is a one off. It is now a fraternity of two with the hope that their tight circle will quickly grow.

An assist from two legends

From the outside, Popovich and George Karl may come across as two of the toughest coaches in the league. While very different people, they are cut from the same cloth. Giants of the game, both are basketball lifers with keen understanding of history. The decision to bring a woman on their staff was a basketball decision, but one that took a certain amount of clout to accomplish.

“They’re strong men,” Lieberman said of Poppovich and Karl. “And we can’t do what we love and what we know best if somebody doesn’t give us an opportunity to show. This is 2015. We have two women running for president, we have an African American president in his second term. Change is hard. Our job is to make it normal and they gave us access and accessibility to making it normal. I know I’m grateful to Pop and to George.”

We are in a time of massive social change, but Karl looked into the proposal of bringing in a female coach more than a decade earlier.

“I thought about this 12-13 years ago,” Karl said of bringing in a female coach. “I remember in Milwaukee I had a list of ladies that I was thinking about interviewing and hiring. I just never got that road, but I’m glad it’s opened up the window. I think it’s going to gradually grow and Nancy’s a very good, talented basketball person, as I’m sure Becky Hammon is.”

Making it normal can be a tall task. There are plenty of qualified candidates in the women’s game, but NBA teams may wait to see how the first two through the door perform before making it a trend.

A player's a player

After spending 15 years in the WNBA, Hammon retired in 2014 and joined Popovich’s staff. After tearing her ACL the year before, the six-time All-Star spent 2013 rehabbing and attending Spurs practices.

She has found the transition to coaching smooth, and points to her time in the WNBA as one of the primary reasons for her success in dealing with male players.

“At the end of the day, these guys just want to be coached,” Hammon said. “If you have something to offer them, they’ll listen. A lot of these guys, I know I’m old enough, Nancy’s old enough, they watched me play in the WNBA. That’s a cool kinda legacy. Their mindset it different than the mindset of of a boy growing up 30 years ago.”

It helps that she joined the most veteran team in the league. At 38 years old, she is younger than legendary big man Tim Duncan and only a few months older than Manu Ginobili. Plenty of Spurs players have been together for over a decade and they are familiar with Hammon from her seven years with the San Antonio Stars.

The team Lieberman is joining is different, but so is she. At 57, she has a different approach to life and the players that enter her world than Hammon. Her connection with Rajon Rondo was almost instantaneous and she embraces the role of big sister.

Still in incredible shape, she can be seen competing in free throw shooting contests with the players. She is confident and sports Hall of Fame credentials to boot.

Same but different

Like Popovich, Hammon is hard nosed and singularly focused. Like Karl, Lieberman is gregarious and a friend to the media. As two individuals, Hammon and Lieberman couldn’t be more different.

But at the end of the day, these two women are no different than their male counterparts. And in many instances, their accomplishments as players far exceed the men around them.

“I don’t ever want to downplay the significance of it, but it is just basketball and it’s what we’ve been doing our whole lives,” Hammon said. “We worked relentlessly and tirelessly as little girls to become great basketball players. So to see that work be rewarded on the other side of the court, on the men's side, it shows how far society’s come.”

This is a major step forward for women in professional sports. As Hammon and Lieberman sat and talked you could see the mutual admiration and respect. They both understand the role each played in furthering history.

Lieberman helped open a door for Hammon to put her talents on display. And in the end, Hammon reciprocated by breaking down one of the last walls in professional sports.

 

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