PRESIDENT AND CEO John Doleva was producing what has turn into a routine telephone get in touch with for him following extra than 20 years with the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
On the other finish of the line was New Orleans Pelicans vice president of basketball operations Swin Cash.
Cash had cleared her schedule on March 28 to be offered in the course of the window that Doleva was supposed to get in touch with. But as time ticked away, Cash realized her youngest son, Syer, necessary a diaper modify. So Cash, who had been waiting years for this precise get in touch with, politely place Doleva on hold.
When the get in touch with resumed, Doleva told Cash to let Syer know that his mom is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame class of 2022.
“This actually sums up my life ideal now,” Cash told ESPN when recalling the moment. Cash, along with 12 other members will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame on Saturday evening in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Since her playing profession ended, Cash — the two-time NCAA champion and All-American, 3-time WNBA champion and 4-time All-Star, and member of the WNBA’s 20th and 25th anniversary teams — has been wearing various hats.
As a mom to 1-year-old Syer and five-year-old Saint, and the vice president of basketball operations for the Pelicans, Cash has juggled motherhood and breaking into the NBA executive globe.
Throughout her profession, Cash has set ambitions. She set out to attain these ambitions as an All-American at McKeesport Area High School in her hometown of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, which is 15 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. She did so when she won national titles at UConn. And she did so in the course of her 15-year WNBA profession that also incorporated a handful of championship rings.
Along the way, Cash became one particular of the highest-ranking ladies in the NBA. As she enters her fourth season in the Pelicans’ front workplace, her most current target is to make certain that this is only the starting.
Ahead of HER Skilled playing profession, Cash was a standout at UConn for coach Geno Auriemma. Cash stated that Auriemma and her time with the Huskies ready her for exactly where she is these days.
Auriemma, who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006, stated when Cash stepped on campus, her level of competitiveness set her apart from her teammates.
“She attempted to win each possession,” Auriemma told ESPN. “That was evident in higher college. That was evident the extremely very first day of our workouts when she got to Connecticut as a freshman. Of all the major children that came in, no one particular competed tougher or played with extra power than she did.”
Cash was a aspect of two national championship teams at UConn, in 2000 and 2002. Her 2002 group featured Sue Bird, Tamika Williams, Asjha Jones and Diana Taurasi. That squad went 39-, with Cash earning Most Outstanding Player in the 2002 NCAA tournament. She capped off her college profession with a 20-point, 13-rebound overall performance in the national title game.
Cash was the No. two choose in the 2002 WNBA draft — Bird went No. 1 general, Jones was No. four and Williams No. six — and headed to the Detroit Shock.
She led Detroit to WNBA titles in 2003 and 2006 and won her third and final championship with Seattle — and Bird — in 2010. Cash played with Detroit, Seattle, Chicago and Atlanta prior to ending her profession with the New York Liberty in 2016.
It was in New York that Cash started functioning closely with Teresa Weatherspoon, who is now an assistant coach with the Pelicans. The two had squared off toward the finish of Weatherspoon’s WNBA profession, which ended in 2004, but a bond started to kind when Weatherspoon was functioning with the Liberty as the director of player improvement toward the finish of Cash’s playing days.
In 2017, Cash was named the Liberty’s director of franchise improvement in a part that gave her a opportunity to perform with each company and basketball operations.
“You knew that if she ever went into that executive position, she knew how to take a group to the subsequent level,” Weatherspoon told ESPN. “Everyone has to match into that culture. She understood that. And then to carry that more than into the executive level, she’s undertaking a hell of a job.”
While Cash was starting her front workplace part with the Liberty, she also worked for Turner Sports as an on-air analyst. It was there that she met David Griffin, who had left the Cleveland Cavaliers’ front workplace in 2017 and was functioning with Turner as a broadcaster.
During their time at Turner, Griffin and Cash watched games with each other in the green space. Griffin liked how Cash viewed the game and her tips of unifying household and group with each other.
“I told her, ‘If I ever get back into it, I’m going to get in touch with you,'” Griffin stated. “And she believed I was kidding.”
Griffin was hired by the Pelicans as the executive vice president of basketball operations in April 2019. Less than two months later, Cash was officially on board.
“She’s got a definitely excellent eye for talent,” Griffin stated. “I adore the way she believed about the game. She’s a a number of-time champion on a number of levels. She understands what that level of sacrifice appears like. She’s excellent at realizing who is going to be prepared to make that sacrifice.”
FOR MONTHS, WEATHERSPOON had been telling Cash, “That get in touch with is coming, that get in touch with is coming.” So when Cash ultimately got the get in touch with, she wanted to let Weatherspoon know in individual.
She discovered Weatherspoon situated close to a row of seats involving two practice courts on one particular of the Pelicans’ off days.
Cash asked her longtime buddy and coworker if she had any plans come September.
Weatherspoon — who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2019 — did not hesitate.
“I do not want to be nowhere but there,” Weatherspoon stated, nevertheless considering her friend’s query was hypothetical.
After a split second, it clicked for Weatherspoon.
She leapt off the bench, threw a basketball across the health club and sprinted toward Cash, who was standing on the court. She wrapped her buddy in a hug, a moment Weatherspoon known as “accurate, genuine emotion.”
Weatherspoon continued to yell as she wrapped up Cash on the Pelicans’ fleur-de-lis logo that sits in the middle of the practice court floor.
“That was dope, I’m not even gonna lie,” Cash stated.
Weatherspoon will be one particular of 5 Hall of Famers on stage with Cash when she is presented on Saturday, along with Auriemma, Isiah Thomas, Tamika Catchings and Tina Thompson. And as she watches her buddy continue to develop in the most current stage of her basketball profession, Weatherspoon knows “higher items are ahead.”
Cash is now setting her sights on producing history as the very first lady to lead an NBA front workplace.
“That would be the target,” Cash says.
