Head Coach Becky Hammon watches the Las Vegas Aces play the Minnesota Lynx on June 11, 2024. Courtesy of Ethan Miller/Las Vegas Aces.
WNBA fans new and old know the Las Vegas Aces, the back-to-back WNBA Champions who are currently ranked 5th in the league. Star Player A’ja Wilson is favored to be league MVP as she and teammates Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young make their return from a gold medal performance in Paris.
As the stars return to the United States to start the second half of the WNBA season, multiple outlets have reported issues with the team, mostly focused on executives and head coach Becky Hammon. So, what’s going on with the Las Vegas Aces?
Dearica Hamby files suit
On Monday August 12, former Aces player Dearica Hamby, who now plays for the LA Sparks, filed a federal lawsuit against the team and the WNBA. In the suit, Hamby alleges that members of the Aces’ management team and Head Coach Becky Hammon discriminated against her due to her pregnancy, leading to her being traded from the team in early 2023.
Hamby’s suit alleges that after revealing her pregnancy with her second child to team administrators in 2022, after the Aces' first Championship win, administration backtracked on promises made in her two-year contract extension months earlier. To prevent Hamby from exploring free agency, the Aces agreed to pay for her oldest child’s private school tuition, and allowed her to live in team-owned housing.
However, after she announced her pregnancy, the tuition was never paid and she was told to vacate the team housing.
The suit also details conversations between Hamby and Hammon in which Hammon allegedly told Hamby she “was not taking proper precautions to not become pregnant.” In another conversation Hammon told Hamby that the prevailing idea amongst Aces’ management was that she would get pregnant a third time, leaving her unable to play in upcoming seasons.
When Hamby was traded to the Sparks, she spoke on social media about her views surrounding the discrimination against her. The WNBA opened an investigation, which found that the Aces had offered “impermissible benefits” to Hamby in her contract extension, and suspended Hammon for 2 games along with taking away their 2025 first-round draft pick.
Hamby’s suit says that the WNBA never addressed the issue of Hammon’s discrimination against Hamby and took no action to prevent her trade from the Aces.
A WNBA spokesperson told CNN on Tuesday that they are “reviewing the complaint.”
WNBA Questions LV Tourism Department payments to players
In May of 2024, players on the Aces were surprised by the revelation that the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) planned to sign each of them to a sponsorship agreement worth $100,000. This would amount to a $1.2 million total investment in the team’s twelve person roster.
The WNBA opened an investigation into these payments, as they were not informed of the plans by the LVCVA to offer this sum of money to players. The investigation is ongoing, but documents obtained by The IX show that not informing the WNBA seemed to be a part of the LVCVA’s plans.
The IX found emails sent from employees of R&R Partners, the agency which the LVCVA uses to contract sponsorships and marketing campaigns. In the email, Matt Matzen of R&R partners wrote that, “Matt feels we should not engage the commissioner for a couple of reasons we can discuss on the call.” Matt is Matt Delzen, the Aces CFO/COO.
This calls into question the statements of many in the teams' administration including Hammon who said that the team had no part in negotiating the deal and did not know about it in advance.
“There is no league approval process for franchise corporate partnership deals that involves the commissioner, therefore there would be no need to specifically engage with the commissioner,” the Aces’ spokesperson told the IX.
A three-peat?
Despite all of the behind-the-scenes challenges, the Aces still seem on the right track to attempt to win their third championship in a row. Though currently ranked 5th in the league, the strong performances of Young, Wilson, and Plum at the Olympics suggest the possibility of a strong surge in the second half of the season.
Edited by Emily Tsipis
Comentarios