Mark Davis, left, owner of the Las Vegas Raiders and Las Vegas Aces, Clark County Commissioner Michael Naft, center, and Aces head coach Becky Hammon pose with the Key to the Las Vegas Strip during a rally for the Las Vegas Aces on the Las Vegas Strip Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2022. The Aces beat the Connecticut Sun in the WNBA Finals on Sunday to give Las Vegas its first professional championship.
Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Las Vegas Aces owner Mark Davis likes to aim big when it comes to hiring coaches, an ambition that paid off with his WNBA franchise. The successful courtship of former San Antonio Spurs assistant coach Becky Hammon proved to be the first domino to fall and set in motion a championship season.
The 45-year-old Hammon, a former college and WNBA star player, had spent the previous nine years apprenticing under Gregg Popovich as her name circulated for potential NBA head coach openings. It seemed like every time a job opened up, Hammon was rumored to be among the finalists.
So how did Davis manage to swoop in and land one of the most sought-after candidates in the sport? With a record-setting contract worth a reported $1 million per year, making Hammon the highest-paid coach in the WNBA—and, controversially, about four times the maximum player salary.
By raising the stakes so high, anything less than a championship in 2022 would have been a failure. Turns out, Las Vegas won’t have to settle for anything less.
Hammon was worth every penny.
Her first year at the helm was sensational, from starting with victories in nine of her first 10 games to lifting the WNBA Championship trophy on September 18 in Uncasville, Connecticut, after a Finals-clinching victory against the Connecticut Sun.
Taking over the most talented roster in the league—but one that had come up short in the past three playoffs—Hammon quickly sorted out the players’ strengths and weaknesses and installed a modern offensive system.
Her most important endeavor, though, was getting the players to believe in her and in themselves.
“The first thing you have to do in building a championship culture is to set a tone of accountability, first and foremost,” Hammon said. “Bringing people together for a common goal bigger than themselves.”
Veteran point guard Chelsea Gray, one of the most respected players in the entire WNBA, said Hammon accomplished that goal early on.
“It was immediate,” Gray said. “In training camp, you saw her making those habits and start creating that relationship. She’s not going to be easy on us—she’s making sure we’re ready for when the time comes.”
Once Hammon got the team to play as a cohesive unit, the results were staggering, as Las Vegas rolled through the regular season with the WNBA’s best record (26-10). She emboldened superstar A’ja Wilson, who won her second WNBA MVP award, while Hammon earned Coach of the Year honors.
“When I took the job in December, I thought when I started breaking down the roster that I can do something with it,” Hammon said. “I had a vision of what I wanted to do with this team.”
That vision became reality against the Sun, as Hammon piloted the Aces to a Game 4 victory to close out the WNBA Finals and bounce back from a humbling 105-76 loss in Game 3. The win featured another stroke of genius from Hammon, who went to a smaller lineup in the second half despite Connecticut having bullied Las Vegas in the interior for the past six quarters of the series.
The counterintuitive gambit paid huge dividends, as reserve guard Riquna Williams took advantage of mismatches to pour in 17 clutch points, including a pair of go-ahead 3-pointers in the final two minutes. She hit one more triple that all but secured the win with less than a minute to play.
“I felt like if we could just scrap and dig out balls at the other end, [Connecticut] would have a tough time guarding us down there,” Hammon explained. “Whoever their biggest player was on, we were running them into pick-and-roll actions and then just kind of stepping out and making them pay in different ways.”
Hammon’s coaching acumen was a driving force behind the Aces’ success all year.
On a macro level, she completely rewrote the team’s offensive playbook. Previous Aces teams played fast and scored a lot of points but did so via an archaic style that relied on post play and de-emphasized 3-point shooting. Las Vegas ranked last in three-point shooting a year ago despite being third in accuracy.
Hammon ditched the inside-out approach and installed a more Spurs-like pace-and-space system that promoted ball movement and outside shooting. Las Vegas vaulted to third in 3-point attempts in 2022 while topping the league in accuracy and offensive efficiency.
Wilson was the focal point during the regular season, averaging 19.5 points per game and becoming both an offensive and defensive threat from everywhere on the floor. Gray took over in the postseason, averaging a team-high 21.7 points per game while shooting a league playoff record 61.7% from the floor en route to a WNBA Finals MVP nod.
Hammon knew the team needed to lean on its point guard, who also averaged seven assists per game in the postseason. She nailed such coaching decisions all season, and it’s the biggest reason why the 2022 Las Vegas Aces were able to succeed where previous editions failed to bring home a title.
That allowed her to be doused in confetti and champagne at the conclusion of the season, reaching the pinnacle of the sport barely eight months after taking the job.
“The bigger thing is the players really bought into it,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what scheme you’re doing, the players have to believe in it. I think at the end of the day, they saw the good results.”
This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.
