LAS VEGAS — Becky Hammon knows how to disguise the mission.
When her toddler wouldn’t eat his broccoli, she told him that if he did, he might grow strong enough to one day beat up his older brother. And when her team wasn’t as accountable and involved with each other as she would have liked, she told them they were responsible for the scouting reports.
“All of a sudden, it’s what’s in it for them,” Hammon said.
Now, her growing boys are “shoveling in the broccoli,” and the Las Vegas Aces are in the WNBA Finals chasing a third championship in four years. Unlike seasons past when they asserted dominance from start to finish, this path required a more concentrated effort as their most improbable run of the bunch.
“We went through the mud for this one,” A’ja Wilson said after clinching a 107-98 overtime victory against the Indiana Fever on Tuesday.
It will one day become lore that the 2025 Aces season hit rock bottom on Aug. 2 when the Minnesota Lynx pummeled the Aces, 111-58, at Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas. It was the largest loss by a home team in league history, and it dropped them back to .500, barely clinging onto the eighth and final playoff spot.
Hammon had never considered handing the game plan responsibility over to players, she said amid a full five-game semifinal series against Indiana last week. And when she did do it, she didn’t intend to do it for long.
“But then it was working so good, and they were so locked in,” Hammon said at shootaround ahead of Game 3 in Indiana. “They were having team meetings and team discussions without me being there. That’s hugely important, and they did that on their own.
It’s what turned their season around, and may be what leads to cementing their dynasty.
While the championship Aces rosters of 2022 and 2023 had their own challenges, it was smoother sailing. Not until last year, when the Aces finished with a No. 4 seed, did Hammon dip her toes in the water by having the team make a practice plan.
“I kind of went Bobby Knight on ’em,” Hammon said. “They came up with it and what it told me is what they feel they are weak on. It told me who is going to naturally take the reins leadership-wise. Who’s talking the most?”
The players developed a drill that Hammon still implements now and again. The more consistent long-term gain is the ever-evolving leadership of Wilson, the franchise foundation Hammon has previously described as her “boss.”
“We don’t necessarily need just MVP all the time,” Wilson said the morning she was named to her record fourth title. “We need me to be a leader and to guide and to help my teammates every step of the way. And that is what I took on.”
Wilson encouraged teammates to find their voice in the locker room. She watched players who might not normally speak do so when she ensured it was just them. And she became a buffer between the team and Hammon, even though most of the time, everyone was thinking the same thing.
“A lot of people of her caliber don’t embrace that leadership like that,” NaLyssa Smith, whom the Aces acquired in a June trade, told Yahoo Sports. “For her to embrace it willingly, I think that’s been a huge reason why we’re so successful.”
Another? The accountability chart players started when they took on the scouting report duties. Everyone has a task, and they gently remind each other of it during games, in the locker room and within group chats. It is kept private among the players.
“We’re constantly just making sure that we are doing what we said we’re going to do,” Wilson said. “When we go to our accountability chart, we’re like, ‘OK, did we hold each other accountable to these things? Because you told us you were going to do these things.’ So I think it’s more so of just us internally … making sure that we are doing our jobs, all of us, from top to bottom.”
That goes for Wilson all the way down to rookies and end-of-bench players who won’t get into the game. Aaliyah Nye, the team’s second-round draft pick, played 10 minutes, all in garbage time, over the first two rounds. One of her checks is staying ready if she gets into a game, she said.
“It’s a way we can hold ourselves accountable without the coaches really knowing what that is,” Nye told Yahoo Sports. “I think it’s worked out a lot.”
That privacy is pivotal.
As close as Wilson and Hammon are — and the bond is clear any time they sit in front of a camera — they don’t need to, nor do they feel they should be transparent with each other about everything. Hammon doesn’t know, for example, exactly what was said within the locker room after that 53-point Minnesota loss. All she knows is they had had enough.
“They check in with each other, which is more important,” Hammon said.
Wilson, seated to her right in courtside seats after a semifinals practice, is ready with the nudging retort.
“We love her, but we don’t include her,” she laughs.
Wilson leads the charge on scouting reports, laptop in hand, while guards share what they saw on the court with posts, and vice versa. Acquiring the scouting report duties meant the team collectively turned their minds over a game plan without initiation by Hammon, assistant coach Charlene Thomas-Swinson or first-year assistants Ty Ellis and Larry Lewis. And when the crew steps in to discuss, Wilson has often asked for 15 minutes of players-only time to reassess.
“Sometimes coaches have their opinions versus our opinion,” Smith told Yahoo Sports. “I think it’s very, very good for us to have our ideas and then compare it to the coaches, and then we come together with one big idea.”
Hammon always asks for reasoning. ‘Why do you want to do it this way?’ she’ll ask and deliver a counter. Against the Sparks, led by their former Aces teammates Hamby and Plum, she told the team a defensive scheme against their pick-and-roll wouldn’t work. She liked the matchup, but asked for something else.
“I’m always interested in their thoughts and how they feel, because at the end of the day, I can think it,” Hammon said. “It’s another thing for them to believe in it and execute it.”
There wasn’t much time to wallow after that August loss to the Lynx. The Aces hosted Golden State the following night, beginning a 16-game winning streak to end the regular season and surge into second place in the standings. They survived full-length series with Seattle and Indiana to reach their fourth Finals in six years.
Two months ago, the Aces were floundering. But the days of Wilson reading about people writing off her team and asking her what the problem is are a distant memory. Even though it was her team for all of those Finals appearances, this one is different.
“The more ownership that you can get for them to take that it’s their baby,” Hammon said. “That works out better.”
