Las Vegas Aces' Becky Hammon named 2022 WNBA Coach of the Year

The Las Vegas Aces' Becky Hammon was named 2022 WNBA Coach of the Year, the league announced Friday, making her the first former WNBA player to win the award in her debut season as head coach.

Hammon earned 27 of 56 votes from a panel of sports media members, while the Atlanta Dream's Tanisha Wright — another former WNBA player-turned-coach — came in second with 18. The Chicago Sky's James Wade received eight, while Dallas' Vickie Johnson, Phoenix's Vanessa Nygaard and Washington's Mike Thibault each collected one.

Hammon becomes the seventh coach in WNBA history to take home Coach of the Year honors in their first season.

The No. 1-seeded Aces, whom Hammon guided to a 26-10 regular-season finish, will take on the fourth-seeded Seattle Storm in a best-of-five semifinal series beginning Sunday. The Aces' regular-season winning percentage (.722) is the second-highest winning percentage ever for a rookie head coach.

Las Vegas is hoping to earn a franchise-first WNBA title after advancing to at least the semifinals each of the previous three years under Bill Laimbeer. If the Aces win the title, Hammon would become the first first-year head coach to get a WNBA championship since Van Chancellor did it with the Houston Comets in the league's inaugural season in 1997.

Following the departure of Laimbeer this past offseason, Hammon came in eager to implement a pace-and-space, read-heavy offense featuring a barrage of 3-pointers, a far cry from Laimbeer's more old-school approach predicated on getting the ball into the post. The Aces thrived under the new style: Hammon's 9-1 start to the regular season signified the best 10-game beginning to a head-coaching career in league history, and the team's .722 regular-season winning