Portland Trail Blazers: 4 candidates to replace Chauncey Billups

Becky Hammon was Jody Allen and Rip City Project’s first choice

Becky Hammon’s resume as a player is impressive — three All-American teams at Colorado State, six WNBA all-star games, four appearances on the all-WNBA team, a Spanish League title, and three retired numbers.

Since a 2013 torn anterior cruciate ligament hastened the end of her career, Hammon has been an assistant for one of the greatest coaching mentors in NBA history in San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich. In that time she went from the first woman to coach full-time in the NBA to one of seven.

She supposedly was the number two choice for the Trail Blazers coaching job in July — and the favorite of franchise owner Jody Allen — but it remains to be seen whether that was an honest intention or just a public relations smokescreen to pull attention away from Billups’s admitted involvement in a 1997 gang rape.

Hammon took being passed over with her customary combination of gritty determination and grace, telling CNBC’s Jabari Young:

"I knew I was second; I knew who they wanted. And I’m OK with that, because every race I’ve gotten into my entire life, I’ve been behind, and I’m OK with that. And that’s just how it is — but at the same time, I’m not ignorant to what I’m going up against."

Hammon has the endorsement of players and coaches throughout the league, including an unqualified and enthusiastic one from Popovich, who said she had “earned the respect of everyone in our program, top to bottom.”

In a recent Player’s Tribune post, Pau Gasol took nearly 2500 words to make the point that “Becky Hammon can coach NBA basketball. Period.”

San Antonio’s DeMar DeRozan has also been public in his praise for Hammon‘s coaching chops, saying “She’s quick on her feet, understanding defensive coverages, where we should be offensively, what we should run, different mismatches. Her words on the side are always instrumental.”

It’s unquestionable that Hammon is prepared and capable of leading an NBA team, and it’s rare that franchises get the opportunity to correct a mistake so quickly and clearly. Hiring Hammond is our first, second, and third option, and we hope Jody Allen and Joe Cronin can agree where Allen and Neil Olshey did not.

But should the Blazers decide to make the same mistake twice, there is a great candidate out there with a strong local connection.