Cleveland Cavaliers: 5 good permanent coaching replacements for Ty Lue

Becky Hammon, Asst. Coach, Spurs

Everyone wants to see the Cleveland Cavaliers hire “the next Brad Stevens,” and no, I’m not calling Becky Hammon the next Brad Stevens.

The point is, these people aren’t delivered by Amazon in a box that read: “The best thing nobody else knows about.”

Someone’s got to take a chance on a person and give them a chance to be successful.

And as far as outside the box candidates go, no one is more outside the box than Hammon.

Stevens had led Butler to back-to-back NCAA championship game appearances, but nobody knew if it was going to work in Boston. Before Stevens, college coaches were almost guaranteed to fail in the NBA.

Hammon gets criticized for never having been a head coach, although she’s been a part of Greg Popovich’s coaching tree in San Antonio as an assistant the past four years. And while it’s only the summer league, she’s coached the Spurts in that department.

There’s no question Hammon knows the game, and that was the big thing with Stevens, who didn’t play in the league.

If you don’t know the game, can’t teach the game, and you can’t manage the personalities and egos on your roster, you don’t don’t stand a chance, no matter how you were schooled.