SAN ANTONIO — I dare you to call it a stunt.
I dare you to dismiss the significance of what Becky Hammon did Wednesday night for any reasons, but I especially dare you to pick the ignorant ones.
I dare you to suggest she hasn’t paid her dues, when in fact she’s paid as many of them as just about anyone in her field. I dare you to say players won’t listen, when in fact they’ve been hanging on her every word for more than six years now. And I dare you to say this was about media attention, when the Spurs have gone out of their way to avoid it.
They’re trying to win basketball games, and I dare you to tell them they’re not.
I dare you to walk up to Hammon and tell her to her face she didn’t earn every bit of her place in history. Better yet, I dare you to walk up to Rudy Gay and make the same claim, because his response wouldn’t be as polite as Hammon’s would be.
“I look forward to the day … when nobody gives a (expletive),” Gay said Thursday about the hoopla surrounding the first woman to serve as an NBA coach, or as a Major League Baseball general manager, or as a Power Five college football player, or as a position coach in an NFL game — all of which we’ve seen over the past few months.
But Gay realizes that day is still a long way off, because he knows too many narrow-minded, mouth-breathing cowards out there don’t need me to dare them to reveal their ignorance. Some of you did it with Kim Ng, who if anything was overqualified for her gig running the Miami Marlins’ front office, and others did it with Vanderbilt kicker Sarah Fuller and Cleveland Browns assistant Callie Brownson.
Still, I dare you to try poking holes in Hammon’s credibility, or her track record, or her chops. I dare you to trot out some old lame line about how you can’t coach the game if you never played it, especially since Hammon has more experience playing professional basketball than the rest of the Spurs’ coaching staff combined.
I dare you to tell high-flying third-year Spurs guard Lonnie Walker he’d be better off listening to some male coaching retread, when Walker said Thursday, “Every single day, (Hammon) has taught me something new.”
I dare you to tell a veteran like DeMar DeRozan, a guy who considers himself one of the last active members of the NBA’s old school, that a woman never will be accepted in a huddle comprised of young men.
“You don’t think twice about it,” DeRozan said after the game. “She’s one of us. When she speaks, we are all ears.”
Because I really need a laugh, I dare you to explain how Hammon taking over for Gregg Popovich after his ejection on Wednesday might have been fine for one night but never could work on a permanent basis, because the team couldn’t handle the sideshow-like distraction.
More Information
Female coaches in the NBA
When Becky Hammon was hired by the Spurs in August of 2014, she was the first female full-time assistant coach in NBA history. Now there are eight:
Becky Hammon, Spurs
Brittni Donaldson, Toronto
Natalie Nakase, L.A. Clippers
Jenny Boucek, Dallas
Lindsay Gottlieb, Cleveland
Lindsey Harding, Sacramento
Sonia Raman, Memphis
Teresa Weatherspoon, New Orleans
A distraction? In a testament to just how wrong that assumption is, Gay said “the biggest part of what happened last night was we didn’t even notice that Becky was the first female to coach an NBA game.”
Other people did, though, and I dare you to claim the message wasn’t important. I dare you to downplay the meaning of the moment to more than a dozen women who followed Hammon into the league’s coaching ranks since Popovich hired her in 2014, or to the thousands of girls who dream of doing the same.
I dare you to wave away Hammon’s breakthrough as a gimmick, when even the greatest player of his generation couldn’t help but get swept up in the milestone.
“It’s a beautiful thing just to hear her barking out calls, barking out sets,” Lakers star LeBron James said after walking off the AT&T Center floor Wednesday night. “She’s very passionate about the game. So congrats to her and congrats to the league.”
I dare you to assume that praise is the reason Hammon got her chance. If anything, an argument could be made that it should have happened sooner, but when Popovich was ejected from a game last year, he handed the team over to Hall of Famer Tim Duncan instead.
“I’m not here to make history,” Popovich said at the time, and while that might not have been the best way to explain himself, it was true, and it wound up making what happened Wednesday resonate even more.
“You got ’em,” Popovich said, pointing to Hammon as he made his exit Wednesday, and I dare you to suggest he did this for any reason other than his complete, unwavering belief that she was the most qualified person for the job.
That’s why he hired her 6½ years ago. That’s why he promoted her from the back of the bench to the front, and that’s why the Spurs, without a second thought, watched her draw up a play with an elevator-door screen and ran it just as she designed it.
It’s also why Wednesday won’t be the last time she’ll serve as an NBA head coach.
“It’s a big deal,” Hammon said. “It’s a substantial moment.”
I dare you to tell her she’s wrong.
mfinger@express-news.net
twitter.com/mikefinger
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