Becky Hammon
The favorite to be the first female head NBA head coach.
Hammon had a long playing career in the WNBA. When she had to sit out a year due to a torn ACL, she helped out coach Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs as a volunteer. That has evolved into being Popovich’s current No. 1 assistant, a job that has seen many move up to NBA head coaching jobs (Brett Brown was only the No. 2 assistant with Spurs when he was hired to coach the Sixers).
She coached the Spurs to the championship in the 2015 Las Vegas Summer League and a couple of years ago interviewed for the Milwaukee Bucks head coaching position (they instead picked Mike Budenholzer, a former No. 1 assistant to Popovich).
It is thought that whenever Popovich retires — he is 71 — Hammon will slide over and take the reigns in San Antonio.
However, there were a bit of eyebrows raised this season as two times Popovich was not on the bench (once thrown out by refs, the other not there for a game due to personal business) but instead of turning the reigns over to Hammon;, Popovich had long-time Spurs star Tim Duncan, in his first season as an assistant, be the acting head coach.
Popovich low-keyed it and said it was because Duncan had scouted the opponent, and he did let Hammon coach one of the scrimmages in Orlando. But still, people took notice.
Since the 76ers ownership admires the Spurs organization as a whole (even though they do nothing as good as them). hiring another Popovich assistant as their head coach would not be out of the box.