Hope and encouragement, especially hope, is probably one of the

In the halls where teams are forged and seasons are weighed like grain, hear Becky Hammon speak a simple, iron truth: “Hope and encouragement, especially hope, is probably one of the greatest things you can give another person.” She names gifts that weigh nothing and yet lift everything—breath for tired lungs, horizon for a crowded mind. In the old tongue we would say: hope is tinder; encouragement is the spark. Given freely, they turn a cold night into a campfire no wind can quite put out.

The meaning is double. First, encouragement is not flattery but courage transferred—steady eyes that say, “You can do the hard thing, and I will stand nearby while you try.” Second, hope outstrips even encouragement because it resets a person’s time: it tells the soul that tomorrow is worth building toward. Where tactics and schemes fail, hope opens the heart’s gate; then instruction can enter and effort can take root. This is why coaches, teachers, and elders in every age treat hope like sacred oil—reserved for crises and poured lavishly when the flame sputters.

Hammon’s life makes the line ring true. Undrafted, undersized, underestimated, she fought for a locker and then for a legacy, crossing oceans to extend her career, then crossing barriers to sit on an NBA bench as a full-time assistant before taking the helm of the Las Vegas Aces. The record shows the arc—Spurs apprentice, then WNBA head coach, then championships and the Hall of Fame—yet the thread through it all is the same: belief offered and belief returned, a culture built on hard truth and warm confidence. Her public interviews echo this ethos: she talks about giving people room to grow, lighting a path bigger than the box others put them in.

A small story makes the wisdom plain. In a practice gym where the floor still smells of varnish, a young guard keeps bricking threes. Breath short, shoulders tight, she stares at the stripe as if it accused her. A coach walks over—not with a lecture, but with encouragement honed to an edge: “Keep the base. Trust the follow-through. Next rep is the only rep.” Nothing mystical changes—only the weather inside the player. The shot arcs cleaner, then cleaner again. By night’s end she is not perfect, but she is unafraid. The difference was not a new playbook; it was hope—permission to keep becoming.

History bears the same lesson in larger letters. Generals have won battles with numbers and lost wars for lack of morale; founders have drafted beautiful charters that failed because no one believed they could live by them. The engines of change—political, artistic, spiritual—ignite where someone dares to say, “I see more in you than you yet see,” and then stays long enough to prove those words with presence. A nation, a school, a family—all are poor without hope, rich with it.

As for the origin of the quotation, it circulates in established collections of Hammon’s sayings—short lines gathered from her public remarks and interviews, used to illustrate the spirit with which she leads. While a single first-publication transcript is not isolated in those compilations, the thought accords with the profile of her career and the way she speaks about coaching: set a high bar, supply encouragement, and keep people pointed at a future they can build together.

What, then, shall we do with this teaching? First, practice daily encouragement that is precise, not generic—name the effort you saw, the skill that improved, the habit worth keeping. Second, carry spare hope like a traveler carries water—offer it to teammates, students, neighbors when their wells run low. Third, build simple rituals that institutionalize hope: begin meetings by recalling one recent win; end practices by naming one teammate’s unseen labor. Fourth, make your praise costly by tying it to accountability: we cheer because we believe you can meet the standard, not because the standard is gone.

Finally, keep Hammon’s cadence as a pocket rule: hope first, encouragement next, and both given freely. When fatigue whispers that people change too slowly, answer with the patience of a long season. When cynicism says words don’t matter, remember how a sentence once kept you on the path. Give that sentence to someone today. For of all the things mortals can trade—money, advice, technique—the gift that multiplies most mysteriously is hope: offer a cup, and watch a river begin.