Los Angeles Sparks forward Dearica Hamby filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the WNBA and the Las Vegas Aces alleging her former team and head coach Becky Hammon withheld agreed-upon benefits and questioned her commitment to the team after learning Hamby was pregnant.
Hamby, a multiple-time all-star who won a championship with the Aces in 2022, signed a multi-year contract extension with the team that June. The lawsuit says the Aces promised Hamby “certain benefits and inducements outside of the contract,” including covering private school tuition for her young daughter Amaya and providing housing accommodations for Hamby’s family.
Hamby discovered she was pregnant the next month, the lawsuit continues. Hamby alleges in the suit that, when she told Hammon and Aces management and then publicly announced her pregnancy during the championship parade that September, there were changes in the way she was treated – including being ordered to vacate the team-provided housing and the team backpedaling on the tuition payments.
Christina House / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The suit also details a phone conversation in January 2023 in which, it alleges, Hammon called her a “question mark,” accused her of signing her contract knowing she was pregnant and telling her she hadn’t held up her end of the bargain.
The day of the alleged phone call, Hamby wrote in a social media post, “Imagine expressing your fears as a woman and being pregnant in this profession/world…. Then to be reassured that you were supported.. and your back was “had”…. only to then be used against you. Lmao”
Shortly afterward, Hamby was traded to the Sparks. She continued to speak out on social media, asking “Did the team expect me to promise not to get pregnant in exchange for the contract extension?”
Following an official WNBA investigation, the Aces lost their first round draft pick for 2025 over “impermissible player benefits” and Hammon was suspended for two games for violating the team’s and league’s “respect in the workplace policies.”
Hamby asserts that the WNBA didn’t impose adequate punishment on the Aces or Hammon and that the team retaliated against her after she went public in the social media post with her claims of discrimination.
After her son Legend was born in March of 2023, Hamby played all 40 games for the Sparks. This season, she was selected as an all-star for the third time and won a bronze medal in women’s 3×3 basketball at the Paris Olympics.
