Lakers' Danny Green Praises Becky Hammon as 1 of His 5 Best Coaches Ever

Danny Green played for Roy Williams at North Carolina and Gregg Popovich with the San Antonio Spurs, along with respected coaches such as Frank Vogel, Nick Nurse and Mike Brown at other NBA stops.

Green says Spurs assistant Becky Hammon is among the five best coaches he's ever played for.

Popovich hired Hammon, a WNBA legend, as an assistant in 2014, and Green told Mike Singer of the Denver Post she earned the respect of the players.

"It wasn't like, 'Oh, this is Becky, or that's our female coach,'" Green said. "It was like, 'Coach, or Coach Hammon or Becky,' she's got some good stuff, see Becky about this or talk to her about that."

Hammon, 43, is a borderline lock to become the first female head coach in NBA history. She led the Spurs' summer-league team to a championship in 2015, became the first woman to sit on the All-Star Game bench in 2016 and has drawn praise from players and Popovich for her acumen.

"There's no difference between a woman who knows the game and a man who knows the game. It's just another prejudice that probably has to be overcome just like a lot of other prejudices in the world have become less and less as people paid attention to them," Popovich said in November, per Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington.

Pau Gasol, who played for the Spurs from 2016 to '19, wrote an op-ed in The Players' Tribune in 2018 defending female coaches and highlighting his experience with Hammon.

"And I'm telling you: Becky Hammon can coach," Gasol wrote. "I’m not saying she can coach pretty well. I'm not saying she can coach enough to get by. I'm not saying she can coach almost at the level of the NBA's male coaches. I'm saying: Becky Hammon can coach NBA basketball. Period."

With several Spurs assistants receiving head coaching opportunities—Ime Udoka, a former Spurs assistant who joined Brett Brown in Philadelphia last year, is the latest under consideration, per Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times—it should only be a matter of time before Hammon is leading an NBA organization.