Speaking in an interview with Fox, the Las Vegas Aces head coach made it clear where the focus should lie. “In the college game, it’s about being disciplined,” she said. “I would just say chase purpose and greatness, not the bag.” For Hammon, college is more than a stepping stone to financial gain. It is a critical phase for building essential life skills. As she further explained, “In college you should be learning how to problem-solve, make resolutions, have hard conversations and be able to work through those emotions and those different situations that equip you for later on in life.”

This explains why Becky Hammon has never been a big fan of the transfer portal, even though she supports NIL. And that stance is quite understandable. For the 2025-26 college basketball season, over 4,500 players across both Division I men’s and women’s programs entered the transfer portal. Many did this to  search for more playing time, while others did for opportunities to earn more money.

And as former football coach Nick Saban once pointed out, this constant movement erodes the “educational values” of college sports. It shifts the focus away from personal development and toward something that increasingly resembles a professional-style free agency system.

For Becky Hammon, it is important for athletes to actually develop these values, because they are what prepare them for the realities of the real world. In her exact words, “At the end of the day, once you get out there to the real world and people aren’t catering to you. You become just a normal citizen and not a student athlete or an athlete in general. The world looks and treats you differently, so prepare for that.”

And of course, not every college athlete will eventually make it to the professional level. And so, like Becky Hammon said, building discipline, resilience, and strong character are essential qualities that will serve them long after their careers in sports come to an end.

NIL Dispute Could Reshape College Sports Pay Structure

There is a new legal dispute over the NIL approval process that could affect the payment system in college sports. Attorneys in the said legal dispute, the House v. NCAA case, have asked a federal judge to intervene in how the College Sports Commission (CSC) reviews NIL deals. According to their motion, they want to block the CSC from labeling certain third-party companies, like multimedia rights partners, as “associated entities.”

These “Associated entities” are groups like boosters or NIL collectives that have close connections to a school. And because of their connections to schools, any deals they help arrange are checked more carefully to make sure they’re not just hidden payments for playing. But now, the CSC is applying that same label to multimedia companies, which are businesses that help schools bring in sponsorships and, more recently, connect athletes with NIL deals.

And so, the argument now is that these multimedia companies are not the same as boosters or collectives. By treating them the same way, the CSC now makes its review system too strict, and that is causing delays that hurt athletes’ ability to earn money. As for the CSC, they believe their process is fair and most deals get approval within about a week. And so, this lawsuit to them is an attempt to avoid their process.

A decision on the case could have a major impact on the future of athlete compensation. If the court eventually sides with the athletes, fewer deals would face heavy scrutiny. Also, athletes could earn money more easily and quickly, and schools and partners might find ways to go beyond current pay limits. And that could make the current “salary cap” system in college sports much harder to enforce. A hearing on the matter is expected to take place in late May.