Chelsea Gray glanced at the double resistance in front of her eyes, and her eyes jumped straight onto her teammate stockks-she used a fake cover to get rid of the opponent, and now she has reached the basket. Gray didn’t think much about it. The left hand made a long pass, and the basket over the Stokes was successful. After the Manu-like block was broken down, Morante and Lowry who watched the battle couldn’t help clapping. More than 10,000 spectators in Las Vegas heard thunderous cheers again. Since this team moved from San Antonio to Las Vegas, this kind of Cheers never stopped.
On the way out of defense, Becky Harmon, who was in a suit and tie, entered Gray’s vision. She remembered the six word mantra emphasized by the new coach countless times: “let the ball move and find the right teammates.”
Becky Harmon
For the las vegas audience, ace players and harmon himself, this year was a dream: harmon had just become the manager of WNBA team and led the las vegas ace team to play the best league record of 26-10 losses, the most three-pointer, the highest average score, and the highest starting lineup of goal difference in the league, and the sixth person of the year on the bench. They crossed the Phoenix Mercury and Seattle Storm, and defeated the sun in the finals. From the Silver Star leader to the Trump coach, after 14 years, Harmon led the team again and came to the championship trophy.
After winning two home games in a row, Harmon invited the Popovich baby who were present to the dressing room. Facing these players wearing familiar black jerseys, Popovich baby remembered the morning when they first talked about basketball with Harmon 10 years ago: “I always do what she says, so I’m here.”
Becky Harmon led the ace team to win the championship
At that time, Hamon had a bad life. At the age of 34, she was swept in the first round and missed the bronze medal in the Olympics, but it was better than four years ago-Hamon at that time had just been traded to Silver Star, he led the team to the playoffs for two consecutive years, and even entered the finals in 2008. In his spare time, he joined hands with Duncan and general to win the “mixed shooting champion”, creating a world record of 42 penalty 38 in one minute. But this is the kind of Harmon. Hamon, who ranked second in the MVP list in the season, was not even included in the 23rd National People’s Congress list of women’s basketball in the United States.
“They have never received the call from Becky and her agent, and none of them,” Harmon’s mother said. “She was hit hard.”
The cold water of disappointment poured down her expectations for Beijing Olympics. But Harmon didn’t stop there. She made an extremely bold decision-she joined Russia in order to win the Olympics.
Becky Harmon who joined Russia as “naturalized”
Although many WNBA players played in Russia during the off-season, even today, the detention of Grina, the “female monster”, will still stir up waves, let alone Hamon’s direct “surrender to the enemy, US women’s basketball coach Anne donowan said bluntly:” If you were born and raised in this country but put on a Russian jersey, then you are not patriotic.” Donovan later gave up this position and denied the statement that “Harmon was deliberately rejected in the selection process”. However, Harmon, as a pioneer of domestication, still stung the nerves of Americans.
This kind of pain reflected on Harmon, which reached its peak in the semi-final women’s basketball. Facing the focus of American compatriots, Hamon’s proud long-range feeling was lost, and only 3 points were scored in the game, even when she played the national anthem of the United States, she put her right hand on her chest like the player opposite, which could not calm the controversy and anger.
But Hamon will not regret it. Two days later, she scored 22 points and defeated the Chinese team to win the Olympic bronze medal. Today, on the side table of Hamon’s living room, there are still candlestick with the theme of Beijing Olympics and a music box in the shape of a Russian onion-top Cathedral. After 08 years, Hamon represented Russia in the European Championships, World Championships and the 2012 Olympic Games. “This is a great thing, and I will not change it a penny.” There is no hesitation in Harmon’s words.
In addition to the Jones Cup in 1998, Hamon’s national team has always been playing for Russia.
The courage and boldness of Becky Harmon were not a whim. In the spring of 2012, when she was snorkeling, she suddenly wanted to see Florida sharks. She asked her father for bloody raw fish and fish spear, diving into the water, I soon saw the scene I was looking forward to: a one-person high-hinged shark waved its tail and rushed towards itself. Hamon’s adrenalin was rapidly secreted. She started Middle Fork in the water and aimed at the shark’s nose. She confronted the shark twice. She didn’t get out of the water until the shark swam away.
Harmon claimed to be a “adrenaline fan”. It is hard for women and most men to imagine this hobby. Her home is 19 kilometers from the city center, beside the national forest park and forestry bureau. Since childhood, Harmon followed his parents to fish, hunt, encounter deer in the woods, be chased by barracuda in the lake, fight with dogs in the yard, and successfully leave a lifelong scar on his chin. She is like a RedBull driver who lives on excitement, not because she is fearless, but because I am such a person, I have to do this to overcome my fear.”
Play skydiving in spare time
In addition to fighting with heaven and earth and fighting with dogs, Harmon also fights with basketball and people. Her father has been teaching basketball for 30 years and joked with her daughter that she “fell in love with basketball when she came out of the womb.” This sentence is not too exaggerated. When Harmon learned to walk, she also learned to walk fengshui ball. When she was five years old, she could fengshui ball her hands and became more and more addicted to football: “I was playing full-size basketball when I was two or three years old. I don’t remember when I didn’t have basketball around me.”
Since she was seven years old, Harmon began to practice difficult trolley layup. At the age of eight, she participated in the mixed men’s and women’s league. After playing for a long time, she even jumped two levels and continued to play well in the senior competition, the organizers of the event, which originally frowned, also had to sigh.
11-year-old Harmon looked everywhere for a place to play wild balls. Even though there were all the boys taller than him on the court, he was not afraid at all: “I only thought at that time that it was very interesting. I like it, I don’t care what others say, of course I am the same now.”
Harmon was associated with shotgun and dogs when he was young.
From primary school to high school and university, Harmon is the shortest and slowest player on the court. As a result, she was controversial. The scouts of NCAA first-class league could not even look at her. What could a white girl of 1.68 meters play? But jungles, the assistant of the Colorado school team, found her: “Harmon can always find his teammates in the right position. No one can take her ball. This is her magic, you rarely see white small defenders perform like this.”
Soon, the University of Colorado sent an invitation, and the return came as promised-Harmon grew into the core of the team, led the team to win 33 wins and 3 losses in the fourth season, and entered the Sweet 16, winning young pioneer team history points, three points and assistant King.
Even so, WNBA still didn’t pay attention to her. Harmon became a talent show with full honor. Starting from the training camp contract of the New York Free Men team, she quickly gained a firm foothold in the professional league, three years later, he became the first point guard of the free man and was selected as an All-Star three times in four years. Although she was sold to San Antonio by the team in exchange for a more outstanding talent, Harmon also ushered in her personal peak. She became the first core of the team, scoring, both the three points and assists entered the top ten in the history of the league, and even ranked among the top ten stars in the history of WNBA.
“She left a deep impression on me,” Ginobili said, “because her body and speed are not dominant. But she has her own way of influencing the competition. Even if one day her shooting is no longer excellent, she can still make a step faster with her own wisdom. This type of player usually becomes a coach.”
Harmon and Ginobili
In 2012, on the Olympic flight flying back to the United States from Britain, Harmon talked about basketball philosophy with Popovich baby for the first time. Popovich baby remembered her very quickly. In 2013, Harmon suffered a ligament tear in the first game of the season, during the recovery period, she was invited to the Spurs team to become a free intern. In 2014, Harmon chose to retire because of her age and knee injury. In the summer of her retirement, Popovich baby called her and invited her to become a full-time teaching assistant of the Spurs.
This is a small step for Spurs and Harmon, but a big step for American basketball. Harmon is about to become the first female teaching assistant working full-time in NBA. From Billy Kim to Nancy Pelosi, basketball practitioners, media and politicians all across the United States are emphasizing and praising the historic significance of this step, just like Spurs and Harmon saved the world from male chauvinism. But the two parties were not surprised. Popovich baby said: “Becky has a keen feeling about the competition. She is like Steve Cole and Doug Rivers. What she has done and what I believe she can do are much more important than the external reaction.”
It turns out that Popovich baby didn’t look around, and Harmon didn’t become a “vase” with much symbolic meaning than practical meaning “. He encouraged teaching assistants to challenge authority and make different voices. Harmon quickly integrated into it and said in Wu ducurno, “she jumped in immediately.”
Hamon challenged not only the authority of the coach and other teaching assistants, but also the fierce debate with the team staff around the NFL team when the other party claimed loudly that “dallas cowboys (cowboys) when it is better than Denver Broncos, Harmon suddenly throws a cold joke:” Oh? Do you like the girl team (cowgirls)?”
Wu ducurno recalled with a smile: “I think, isn’t this gender discrimination? She said, ‘Nothing, I can tell. She is like this. We will joke with each other and she will return immediately.”
Wu ducurno and Harmon
The experience, consciousness and basketball concept accumulated in the professional field for more than ten years, coupled with the inherent fearless character, make Harmon seamlessly connect between the two identities. In 2015, Harmon led the Austin Spurs to win the Summer League championship, creating a new history again. People will no longer think that recruiting Harmon Spurs is just a groundbreaking symbolic act. Popovich baby’s words echoed in their ears again: “People will understand that we are serious and she has such prestige.”
Excellent point guards generally have coaching potential, and so does Harmon. In 2017, the Silver Star team moved to Las Vegas and renamed the ACE team. In the “post-Harmon era”, their ambitions rose instead of falling. Bill ranbill, the first coach (that is, the piston villain who doesn’t like playing ball and beating people), said: “The Las Vegas ace team represents excellence, confidence and full of hard work.” This kind of momentum coincides with Harmon. In 2021, the ACE team signed Becky Harmon, who had never had WNBA coaching experience, with the highest annual salary of the league. No one doubted this decision any more, and Harmon also lived up to expectations. In the first year, he led the team to win the first league record and became the first previous career player in the league to become the best coach in the first year of coaching, and lead the team to win the championship.
Harmon led the team to win the championship
Hamon’s life is full of all kinds of “firsts”, and her resume can also be called the template of the female master shuang wen, from a “wild child” who likes to drive up the mountain and down the water to a famous place in women’s basketball circles, from the controversial image of the villain, to the female warrior who opens up the New World and breaks the stereotype, to the incredible coach career…… Harmon always seems to be the first to eat crabs, which will always make people shine at the moment.
But behind these “first”, there were also the sweat and blood from seven o’clock in the morning to nine o’clock in the evening, and bluntly speaking, she was too slow and too short scout, coaches and executives who shut her out for the same reason. One Step Ahead is the pioneer, and three steps ahead are the martyrs. The first person who eats crabs always has blood in his mouth. Hamon has also experienced numerous twists and turns, accidents, snub, doubts and attacks, only through the obsession with adrenaline and the courage to face the fear, did we find the door to the road ahead in the vast fog.
Hamon’s mother clearly remembered that on the day of the invitation call in Popovich baby, 2014, Hamon, who dared to provoke sharks, cried so hard that he could not grasp the phone receiver: “Mom, they chose me! I have never been chosen, they chose me!”
Welcome to our wechat public number “Houchang Village sports team” to see, there are more NBA, CBA related archaeology, comments and character content>>
(WEN/Pan Zhili)