Eight years ago, Becky Hammon made history as the first full-time female assistant coach in the NBA. On Monday, she was officially announced as the next head coach of the Las Vegas Aces, three days after signing a five-year deal that will reportedly make her the highest-paid coach in the WNBA.

Hammon’s return to the league might have come as a surprise to those who thought she’d be the first woman to serve as a head coach in the NBA. Since Hammon joined Gregg Popovich’s San Antonio Spurs staff in 2014, six other women now hold assistant coaching jobs in the NBA, including Teresa Weatherspoon, Hammon’s former New York Liberty teammate who is currently with the New Orleans Pelicans.

On Monday, Hammon called NBA jobs “hard to get.”

“In some ways, I feel like the NBA maybe is close,” she said. “In other ways, I feel like they’re a long ways off from hiring [a woman head coach]. I don’t know when it could happen.”

Hammon has interviewed for NBA head coaching jobs on multiple occasions, and said that, in some ways, she feels like she “was very close” to finally landing a head coaching gig. When Aces owner Mark Davis and president Nikki Fargas met with her about the Las Vegas opening, she knew she was ready to lead a basketball team.

“I sat in a lot of head-coaching interviews,” Hammon said. “Two things that people always said: ‘You’ve only been in San Antonio, and you’ve never been a head coach.’ Well, Mark Davis met me. Nikki met me. And they said, ‘That’s a head coach right now.'”

But Hammon isn’t looking at the Aces as a stepping stone. It’s a head coaching job in a major professional sports league, and it’ sa league she spent 16 years playing in — eight with the Liberty and eight with the San Antonio Stars. While she had never closed the door on the WNBA, Hammon said she hadn’t intended to leave the NBA until the Aces pursued her.

“A lot did go into this decision, a lot of sleepless nights,” Hammon said. “I came to the conclusion that this was the best spot for me and my family, and an opportunity for me to sit in the big chair and be a head coach of a major professional sports league.”

Fargas said Hammon made such an impression when the Aces retired her jersey in September that they decided to try to lure her away from San Antonio.

“Being the head coach of the Las Vegas Aces is a step forward and a step in the right direction for myself and for women’s basketball,” Hammon said. “I cannot emphasize enough the importance of this opportunity that I have. There’s something to being a head coach.

“I feel like I’m ready to have my own team. And this is the organization that made it very, very obvious they wanted me really, really bad. And so it’s always good to be wanted.”

She also recognizes how big of a deal it is that more WNBA teams are hiring women. Now, six of 12 teams have female head coaches, with the New York Liberty expected to make it seven when they officially name Sandy Brondello as head coach. The Phoenix Mercury are the only other team with a job opening.

“It matters because representation matters,” Hammon said. “I think once we can start peeling back the layers of society and what is viewed as [a leader], we can start hiring people based on what they bring to the table.

“There are so many great women coaches out there who should be leading their own teams and given those opportunities. We have never had these press conferences when it came to a man leading a women’s team, but there are all these conversations about women leading a men’s team.”

Hammon also wants the narrative between men’s and women’s basketball to change.

“Quite frankly, I’ve been watching the WNBA for a long time and stealing all their plays for a while,” she said. “[WNBA coaches] have great basketball minds, and they are 100 percent invested in what they do, and they are the best at what they do.

Long thought to be Popovich’s replacement when he retires, Hammon now takes over one of the best teams in the WNBA. Bill Laimbeer will remain with the Aces and assist in roster-building during free agency while Hammon finishes out the NBA season with the Spurs. Las Vegas ended 2021 as the second-best team during the regular season before falling to the Mercury in the semifinals.

Sportico released its 2025 tennis prize money tracker late last week, and three of the annual cross-tour rankings' Top-5 earners hail from the WTA.

With $8.21 million in total 2025 earnings so far, newly minted Wimbledon winner Iga Świątek came in third behind ATP Tour giants Carlos Alcaraz ($10.63 million) and Jannik Sinner ($9.04 million).

Just behind Świątek sit reigning US Open champ Aryna Sabalenka ($7.13 million) and 2025 French Open winner Coco Gauff ($5.95 million) in fourth- and fifth-place, respectively.

Even more, a total of six women's tour standouts occupy slots in the Top 10, with Mirra Andreeva ($4.15 million), Madison Keys ($3.96 million), and Jasmine Paolini ($3.79 million) joining the previously trio in that upper echelon.

The gender parity on the list is a direct result of the fact that all four of the sport's Grand Slams boast equal prize money between the men's and women's competitions — a shift that began with the 1973 US Open and saw full adoption across the quartet of tennis majors with the 2007 Wimbledon Championships.

Now approaching two decades of Grand Slam equal pay, pro tennis players enjoy one of the highest in-competition earning potentials across all women's sports.

This year's tennis prize money rankings are far from locked in, however, as the 2025 US Open steps into its second round on Wednesday — with a record-setting $90 million total purse on the line to boost players' spots on the list.

Should world No. 1 Sabalenka defend her title — or if No. 2 Świątek or No. 3 Gauff emerges victorious in the season's final Grand Slam — a WTA player could launch herself to the top of the 2025 earnings list.

The No. 3 Las Vegas Aces are on an historic tear, extending the league's longest winning streak this season to 11 games by defeating the No. 12 Chicago Sky 79-74 on Monday night — becoming the second team to clinch a spot in the 2025 WNBA Playoffs in the process.

Despite a 30-point performance from Chicago guard Ariel Atkins, plus double-doubles from Sky center Kamilla Cardoso and forward Angel Reese, the Aces emerged victorious behind guard Jackie Young's team-leading 22 points.

MVP contender A'ja Wilson and veteran guard Chelsea Gray also added 18 and 14 points, respectively, to fuel the Las Vegas win.

"They've been resilient," Aces head coach Becky Hammon said following Monday's game. "It's been a really tough stretch…you're getting beat up and you've got to maintain, you have to play through it."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

The Aces haven't dropped a game since August 2nd's 53-point blowout loss to the No. 1 Minnesota Lynx, racking up seven wins over teams currently in postseason positions as they climb the WNBA standings.

As for the already-eliminated Sky, Chicago did have one big reason to celebrate on Monday night, as the team raised the jersey of retired WNBA legend Candace Parker into the rafters during a halftime ceremony complete with remarks from current Phoenix Mercury star and 2021 WNBA champion Kahleah Copper.

"Today we celebrate you," Copper said to her former teammate. "You gave this game everything. Your time, your body, your heart. You didn't just play the game — you set records, you broke barriers, and you left your mark in ways stats can't fully compare."

How to watch the Las Vegas Aces this week

The No. 3 Aces have their work cut out for them as they shoot for 12 straight wins during their visit to the No. 2 Atlanta Dream on Wednesday.

The clash tips off at 7:30 PM ET with live coverage airing on NBA TV.

The No. 5 New York Liberty stopped the skid on Monday, as the reigning WNBA champions claimed a tight 81-79 victory over the No. 11 Connecticut Sun with 2023 MVP Breanna Stewart back the starting lineup.

Following her 13-game absence due to a bone bruise, Stewart scored a team-leading 19 points on Monday, offsetting Sun guard Leïla Lacan's game-high 22 points as already-eliminated Connecticut tried to play spoiler in Brooklyn.

"She's just got this relentlessness about her that can rub off on her teammates," New York head coach Sandy Brondello said of Stewart's influence. "She's got the highest motor I've ever seen in a player that just keeps going and going."

The Liberty have struggled with availability all season, losing guards Sabrina Ionescu (foot injury) and Natasha Cloud (nose fracture) to injury in the run-up to Stewart's return as the team slid down the standings.

However, Ionescu joined Stewart in returning to the Liberty court on Monday, with Cloud reportedly on track to rejoin the New York lineup later this week.

With games against the No. 10 Washington Mystics, No. 4 Phoenix Mercury, and No. 7 Golden State Valkyries looming over the next week, the Liberty are hoping their best basketball is still in front of them.

"We're in an uphill battle right now and it's not going to get any easier," Stewart said of the team's upcoming schedule.

How to watch the New York Liberty this week

The No. 5 Liberty will next take the court on Thursday, when New York will host the No. 10 Mystics at 7 PM ET.

Live coverage of the clash will air on Prime.

With the current CBA expiring in just over two months, Front Office Sports reported Monday that the prospect of the WNBA and the players' union (WNBPA) reaching a deal before the October 31st deadline is "increasingly unlikely."

"As we approach the 60-day mark, the league's lack of urgency leaves players wondering if it is focused on making this work or just running out the clock," WNBPA executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson told FOS in a statement. "Fans do not want that. They are with the players in demanding a new standard for the W."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

While this year's CBA negotiations have been rocky, the inability to reach a deal in time doesn't necessarily crush the league's immediate plans.

Should they not come to an agreement, the parties will have the option to extend the original deadline in order to avoid an immediate work stoppage — so long as both the WNBA and the WNBPA sign off on the move.

There is precedent for a negotiation extension, with the WNBA and WNBPA pushing the deadline for the 2019 CBA back 60 days to allow for more time to hash out details — a move that ended in an agreement ahead of the 2020 season's free agency period.

However, the WNBA is under added pressure to turn things around.

With expansion teams in Toronto and Portland joining the league in 2026, the clock is ticking for the league to schedule and issue rules for the impending expansion draft.

Until the next CBA lays out the newly negotiated terms surrounding both expansion and free agency, the incoming Tempo and Fire will continue waiting in roster-building limbo.

Ultimately, the WNBA will do everything it can to avoid a strike, but the league will have to balance priorities as rapid growth competes with player demands.