The first former WNBA player to win the award in her debut season as head coach was the Las Vegas Aces'Becky Hammon.
The Atlanta Dream's Tanisha Wright came in second with 18 votes, while the San Antonio Spurs' Becky Hammon earned 27 votes.
The best-of-five semifinal series between the No. 1 and No. 4 seeds will begin on Sunday. Las Vegas has advanced to at least the semifinals in each of the previous three years, and is hoping to win the first title in franchise history.
Van Chancellor was the first first-year head coach in the history of the league to win a title when he did it with the Houston Comets.
Following the departure of Laimbeer, Hammon came in eager to implement a pace-and-space, read-heavy offense featuring a barrage of 3-pointers, a far cry from his more old-school approach. The team's.722 regular-season winning percentage is the third-best in franchise history, and the team's 9-1 start to the season marked the best 10-game start in league history. The second annual Commissioner's Cup championship game was won by the Aces last month, and they also won the All-Star game that year.
Along the way, Vegas' new offense has broken a number of WNBA records, including hitting the most 3s in any game last week with 23 in the first-round playoff game against the Phoenix Mercury, and its 90.4 points per game marked the third-highest scoring average in league
One of the most lethal lineups in the league were the five players from Hammon. Four of the five were named All-Stars earlier this season, including Most Improved prospect Young and expected all-WNBA selection Plum, while Gray was named the Most Valuable Player of the Commissioner's Cup championship game.
Prior to the franchise's move, Hammon played eight seasons with the San Antonio Silver Stars, a team that was the beginning of the franchise. She is one of the greatest players of all time. She became the first full-time female assistant in NBA history when she worked for the San Antonio Spurs.
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