Russian roulette: Hammon defends decision to join Russia’s Olympic team.

For the time being, at least until the worldwide spotlight finally shines on the summer Olympics in Beijing, the dust seemingly has settled around Becky Hammon. Yet that conclusion can only be discerned by those observing the chaos from beyond Hammon’s inner circle. For the former Colorado State University All-American, life continues to be a [...]

WNBA’s Hammon pursuing an Olympic dream … with Russia.

Growing up a pony-tailed patriot in America’s heartland, shooting hoops on a cement slab at her family’s rural Rapid City, S.D., home, where a flag proudly hung from the front porch, Becky Hammon always dreamed of playing basketball in the Olympics. “I don’t know how anybody could be more All-American than me,” says the San [...]

Not quite Becky Arnold: Hammon shouldn’t be branded a traitor by playing for Russia.

Some, such as U.S. coach Anne Donovan, would paint her as a traitor – inasmuch as Hammon has no genealogical tie to the Land of the Czars – but I view her more as a test case than a turncoat. Perhaps, with Hammon, we can start seeing the Olympics less as Us vs. Them and [...]

Olympics opportunity too much for Hammon to pass up.

“I love my country,” Hammon said last month in her Russian apartment. “I love our national anthem. It absolutely gives me chills sometimes. I feel honored to be an American, to be from America because of what we stand for.” But if the 5-foot-6 point guard from America’s heartland does ascend that medal stand in [...]

Becky Hammon follows her Olympic dream to Russia.

This woman from America’s heartland — a native of Rapid City, S.D., and a graduate of Colorado State who speaks very little Russian — will march into the Olympic Stadium under a Russian flag, wearing a Russian uniform. “When I was a little girl there was no WNBA, so the Olympics was the highest thing [...]