During her 10th WNBA season, power forward Dearica Hamby is enjoying a breakout individual run with the Los Angeles Sparks. L.A. at large, however, is in the midst of a season to forget. At 6-18, the Sparks are currently the fifth seed in the Western Conference and the WNBA’s 10th seed overall, out of 12 clubs. By record, L.A. is mere percentage points better than the Washington Mystics and Dallas Wings, both of whom are 6-19.
So far this season, her second with the Sparks, Hamby is averaging a career-high 19.2 points on .520/.404/.612 shooting splits, 10.0 rebounds, and 3.5 assists — along with 1.4 steals a night. The 30-year-old was named to her first All-Star team with Los Angeles this summer, and her third overall.
For all her on-court success, however, the 6-foot-3 Wake Forest product has had her difficulties off it in recent seasons.
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Per Rishikesh Rajagopalan of CBS News, Hamby filed a federal lawsuit against the team with whom she won the 2022 title, the Las Vegas Aces, as well as the WNBA. Per Rajagopalan, Hamby has accused the Aces and Hall of Fame head coach Becky Hammon of withholding team benefits and accusing her of a lack of commitment to the cause once it was discovered that she was pregnant with son Legend Scandrick.
Her tenure there ended unhappily when, during the 2023 offseason, the three-time All-Star and a 2024 WNBA Draft first-round pick were flipped to the Sparks for a second-round pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft and the rights to Amanda Zahui B.
When Hamby inked a two-year contract extension with the club in June 2022, the suit alleges that the deal included accommodating benefits, which included fully-paid private school tuition for Hamby’s oldest child, her daughter Amaya, and team-provided housing. Following a loaded championship victory over the Connecticut Sun that fall, Hamby’s suit accused the Aces of re-negotiating on both those conditions.
Hamby called out Las Vegas on her official Instagram account after the deal.
“Being trade is a part of the business. Being lied to, bullied, manipulated and discriminated against is not. I have had my character and work ethic attacked. I was promised things to entice me to sign my contract extension that were not followed through on. I was accused of signing my extension knowingly pregnant. This is false. I was told that I was ‘a question mark’ and that it was said that I said I would ‘get pregnant again’ and there was a concern for my level of commitment to the team. I was told that ‘I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain’… Did the team expect me to promise not to get pregnant in exchange for the contract extension?” Hamby wrote.
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