A Matter of When, Not If, Becky Hammon Becomes NBA's First Female Head Coach
*By Max Godnick*
The last person to break glass in the NBA was [Shaquille O'Neal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3MTNj7z5dQ), 25 years ago.
Becky Hammon, an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs, could be the next.
Hammon interviewed this week to be the head coach of the Milwaukee Buck. A six-time WNBA All-Star, Hammon was the first woman to be an NBA assistant coach and has served on Spurs' Coach Gregg Popovich's staff since 2014. If she were hired by the Bucks, she would be the first woman to coach a men's team in any of the country's four biggest sports leagues ー the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball, and NHL.
Popovich told [The New Yorker] (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/how-far-can-becky-hammon-go-in-the-nba) in April that he believes his assistant is "ready" to lead her own team.
Hammon is up against other, more-experienced candidates for the Bucks job, including the 2015 NBA coach of the year, Mike Budenholzer. Though most NBA pundits think her chances of being hired are slim, the fact that Hammon is being considered may represent progress for gender equality in professional sports, said James Yoder, the founder of Chat Sports.
"It would be a monumental move in sports history for her to get that job," said Yoder in an interview Thursday with Cheddar.
The Bucks will probably not hire Hammon, Yoder said, but it's a matter of when, not if a woman breaks the NBA's glass ceiling, and it's likely to be Hammon.
"I think before too long, maybe one or two seasons, she will end up landing an NBA coaching job," he said.
Yoder added: "Any woman who thought that she couldn't break into men's sports from a coaching perspective has got to be rooting for Becky Hammon."
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-nba-makes-herstory-with-first-female-head-coach-interview).
"Anything Is Possible," a documentary about NBA superstar Kevin Garnett recounting his career from being drafted out of high school to a championship with the Boston Celtics, is set to premiere on Showtime. Executive producer Marc Levin and co-directors Daniel Levin and Eric Newman joined Cheddar to provide some background on the project and discuss Garnett's legacy. With KG considered a pioneer for modern NBA draftees straight out of high school (the fifth pick in 1995), the filmmakers also discussed the possibility of the league reversing course on its current rule that requires a player to be at least 19-years-old and a year removed from high school to play.
Professional sports is facing a reckoning right now over several stories painting an ugly picture of a toxic work environment, encompassing multiple teams in multiple leagues and dealing with different issues.
This week, the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks ousted their general manager and senior director of hockey operations after an investigation confirmed former player Kyle Beach's claims that the team's former video coach Brad Aldrich sexual assaulted him back in 2010, with upper management ignoring his claims until after the team won the Stanley Cup that season. Last night, Joel Quenneville, now the coach of the Florida Panthers but Chicago's coach that season, stepped down from his post.
This comes just a few weeks after the NFL was rocked by leaked emails showing now-former Las Vegas Raiders Head Coach Jon Gruden using racist, sexist and homophobic language. He resigned soon after the emails came to light. We can't forget, though, that those emails come from a much broader investigation of the toxic work environment in the offices of the Washington Football Team. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said this week the league wouldn't publicly release anything from its investigation of the team, but lawyers for many of the women interviewed in the case say they want a public report.
And last January, just one month after hiring him, the New York Mets had to fire then-General manager Jared Porter, who admitted to sending explicit, unsolicited texts and images to a female reporter in 2016 when he worked for the Chicago Cubs. ESPN had been in possession of the texts since 2017, but the woman in question asked the network not to run the story out of fear her career would be harmed. She only reached back out to ESPN after she left the field of journalism altogether. Porter has been banned from the sport through next season.
If you believe in the phrase "where there's smoke, there's fire," professional sports is a five-alarm blaze.
Julie DiCaro, senior writer and editor at Deadspin, joins None of the Above to discuss.
Jill and Carlo discuss the scenes of joy at American airports as borders reopen, another tool in the Covid toolbox, the latest in the Astroworld crowd crush tragedy and more.
Gaming technology studio Mythical Games recently raised $150 million in a round led by Andreesen Horowitz, bringing Mythical's valuation to above unicorn status at $1.2 billion. Mythical Games' mission is to create a new generation of gaming with play-to-earn games that allow players to play to win actual cryptocurrency. Now the company is taking it to another level with NFT technology, allowing players to play with characters they can truly own. Mythical Games CEO John Linden joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Evan Vandenberg, the founder and CEO of Dibbs, a sports card trading platform, joined Cheddar to break down how his company allows sports fans to buy and sell fractions of sports cards. The physical trading cards are typically held in a vault while fans are provided with a digital representation of that card that they can go on to sell or even buy more fractions of the item. Vanderberg also talked about the company's $13 million Series A funding round and investments from major sports figures like the NBA's Chris Paul and NFL's DeAndre Hopkins.
A Freitag pod with Carlo and Baker, talking about the upcoming federal vax-or-test deadline, the most shocking upset of this week's elections, an incredible story of selflessness and Love, Hate, Ate.
Trysta Krick, host of BetMGM Tonight, breaks down how several major NFL stories impact Week 9 lines, while Snapback Sports founder Jack Settleman makes sense of the chaos in college football and Iain MacMillan, Senior Editor at BetSided, gives his pick for who will win the 2022 NCAA Basketball Tournament.
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Jack Settleman, Founder Snapback Sports and Sports Betting Analyst for The Game Day, joins Cheddar Bets to help break down the surprises and snubs from the initial College Football Playoff rankings, and who will finish in the top four when it's all said and done.
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