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Come Fan with UsTuesday, August 4, 2026

Kings plan to hire Nancy Lieberman, NBA’s 2nd female assistant coach

Nancy Lieberman joins the Spurs’ Becky Hammon as one of two female assistant coaches in the NBA.

Eliot J. Schechter/Getty Images

Nancy Lieberman will become the second woman coaching in the NBA, according to Ailene Voisin of the Sacramento Bee. Sacramento Kings owner Vlade Divac said Thursday that he will be offering Lieberman a job on the team's coaching staff, and Lieberman confirmed that she would accept. The team is expected to announce the news next week.

“Definitely I’m going to offer her a job,” Divac said. “George (Karl) and I talked about bringing her back after she helped us at Summer League (in Las Vegas). She was terrific. She brings a different dimension. I think is a nice opportunity for her.”

Lieberman would join Becky Hammon as the league's only two female assistants. Hammon joined Gregg Popovich's staff in San Antonio last year, and was the head coach of the Spurs' Las Vegas Summer League team that won a championship earlier this month.

Lieberman was also active during Summer League, helping out the Kings in an unofficial capacity. She knows the NBA well, having served as the head coach of the Mavericks-affiliated Texas Legends from 2009 to 2011. Lieberman was the first woman ever to be head coach of a men's professional basketball team.

Lieberman’s basketball resume is sterling. She was inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1996 for her decorated career as a player at Old Dominion and for Team USA basketball. She also played for the short-lived Women’s Pro Basketball League, as well as the WNBA in its inaugural year in 1997 at 39 years old. The next year she was hired as head coach and general manager of the Detroit Shock.

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