Silver gets assist in selling the NBA

SOMETIMES the best man for the job is a woman.

Rebecca Lynn “Becky” Hammon, who spent 15 years playing for the women’s National Basketball Association, gave credence to that notion by coaching the San Antonio Spurs to the NBA Las Vegas Summer League title recently.

The Spurs won with a record of 6-1 overall, beating the Phoenix Suns, 93-90, in the final game to achieve the milestone in the Vegas tournament—considered the best showcase for a mix of NBA rookies, second-year players and unsigned free agents.

Hammon became the NBA’s first full time assistant coach under Spurs mentor Gregg Popovich last year. Her success in Las Vegas not only was a great first step toward becoming the league’s first female head coach ever.

Her feat and other welcome developments make commissioner Adam Silver’s job easier as the NBA’s top salesman continues his nonstop job of marketing the world’s premier pro league.

Silver must be grinning from ear to ear with this year’s bumper crop of draft picks that includes international players, led by the No. 1 overall choice, Karl-Anthony Towns of the Dominican Republic, who was chosen by the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Other prominent foreign players picked were: Kristaps Porzingis, the second Latvian ever drafted in the first round; Emmanuel Mudiay, who skipped college in the Congo to play in China; and Satnam Singh, the first East Indian to have been selected in the NBA.

Porzingis was drafted fourth overall by the New York Knicks. Mudiay was selected seventh overall by the Denver Nuggets.

Although picked 52nd by the Dallas Mavericks in the 2015 draft, the 7-2, 290-pound Singh, who is only 19 years old, holds promise as the next Yao Ming—the great Chinese center who spotlighted basketball to countless fans in his country.

Basketball is still a developing sport in India, but Mavericks owner Mark Cuban likes Singh as a project for all the right reasons.

Because of Singh, Cuban said there is a “billion new Mavs fans out there right now.” He said his organization has made the first step in capturing the largely untapped Indian market.

Although a business afterthought, Cuban also made a case for Bobby Ray Parks, the Philippine-born player who joined the Mavericks as a dark horse in the Las Vegas Summer League.

Parks made the most of it in a tournament where players dying to get noticed are often not afforded enough minutes on the court.

Although his NBA dream is on hold, Parks  was not lost on Cuban and his desire for the Mavericks to be the team of the most diehard basketball country in the universe.

“We talk about loving basketball in the United States but there is no country more basketball-crazy than the Philippines,” Cuban told the media after the Vegas league.

“I’d love to see more Filipino players. I really, really, would. I don’t think people here really realize the impact of basketball on the Philippines and that’s important. I would love to be the team of the Philippines.”