When former WNBA star Becky Hammon was hired as an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs in 2014, the story was front-page news across the country. She was the first female who had been hired in a full-time assistant position in any of the four major professional sports in the United States.

By the time Altman approached Gottlieb, seven other women held either assistant coaching or player-development roles on an NBA team. In May, NBA basketball commissioner Adam Silver declared that he wanted to see even more women in the league. His personal goal, he announced, was for women to make up half of all new referees joining the NBA, and he encouraged teams to consider hiring more women as coaches as well.

“[There is] a small but growing trend of looking at talent across the basketball world, regardless of gender, and seeing how that would apply to the professional level with the men,” says ESPN.com writer Mechelle Voepel. “They are diversifying their talent pool.”

Hiring Gottlieb is noteworthy as she is the only female head coach to come from women’s college basketball straight into the NBA.

When Gottlieb took over as head coach for the California Golden Bears in 2011, they were coming off a subpar season and finished 18-16 overall. The team carried a mixed bag of experience levels comprised of bright, up-and-coming players and skilled upperclassmen of the sport.

“We underperformed the year before,” recalls Layshia Clarendon, Gottlieb’s former guard who now plays for the WNBA’s Connecticut Suns, “but we were pretty hungry.”

Gottlieb believed her team had a lot of talent, they just needed to work in a system that better fit their strengths. So she adapted to the teams’ personalities and abilities.

They weren’t very tall, but they were quick and strong. To accentuate that speed,

Gottlieb changed up their conditioning. Instead of doing longer runs, she had the team doing circuit-style sprints. Instead of resting the day before games, she had them running because she wanted them on their feet. And because their shooting percentages weren’t stellar, Gottlieb had the team aiming instead to be the best at offensive rebounding.

“So many coaches are so rigid,” says Talia Caldwell, who played center at Cal. “They try to make square pieces fit into round pegs. That wasn’t Lindsay. Coach G was like, ‘Let’s make you the best square peg team that exists.’ ”

Gottlieb encouraged everyone to bring their whole selves to practices and games. She was confident enough in the team’s internal dynamic that she didn’t care how her girls presented themselves externally — be it through mohawks, dyed hair or self-made music videos they posted on the internet.

In 2011, they went head-to-head with teams like Ohio State University and Rutgers University, losing by less than three points. They pulled off a 59-50 upset against the University of Virginia Cavaliers, finished the season 25-10, and attended the NCAA Tournament for the first time in three years.

Gottlieb had hit on something magical and it extended into the next year. Ranked 13th in preseason polls, the team ended up with a 32-4 record in the 2012-2013 season, and made it to the Final Four for the first time in the school’s history.

“When you see people have success where people haven’t usually had success, it’s usually a very good indicator of their quality,” says Beilein.

He made it known during his meeting with Gottlieb in May that he didn’t want to be surrounded by “yes men.” Beilein wanted people coming in from different angles with different perspectives.

“There’s an old saying: ‘You are what your record says you are,’ ” he says. “And when you come from a school like Cal — which is never a school you think about for women’s basketball — and you go to the NCAA Tournament seven out of eight years, you are a heck of a coach.”

Beilein had always admired the women’s side of the sport, taking in as many games as he could at Michigan. He was in awe of what he says was a noticeable difference from the male sport.

“In the women’s game, there’s not as much of ‘I’m going to jump over you and score.’ There are more schemes,” he says. “As a result, you have a great understanding of both offensive and defensive plays. You don’t just win through athleticism.”

The fear of not being accepted by others motivates Gottlieb.

When she became an assistant coach for the first time at Syracuse, Gottlieb, who was 21 at the time, was also pursuing a master’s in philosophy of education and taking classes alongside one of her team’s best players. The experience made her wonder how she could ever assert herself as an authority figure to players who were ostensibly her equals.

“I told the team that I was them the year before,” says Gottlieb. “I was the one in practice, not the one coaching.”

Two years later Gottlieb became assistant coach at the University of New Hampshire, and by the time she was 24, she was working as an assistant to Joanne Boyle, the women’s head coach for the University of Richmond. That move, says Gottlieb, was instrumental in becoming the kind of coach she is today.

“She didn’t say, ‘OK you’re going to be my assistant.’ She said, ‘Let’s do this thing together,’ ” recalls Gottlieb. “She really empowered me to be ready to be a head coach.”

In three seasons, the duo amassed a 67-29 record, with three straight post-season appearances. In the duo’s last year together at Richmond, the team advanced to the NCAA championships — its first ever appearance.

When Boyle was recruited as a head coach for the University of California in 2005,

Gottlieb was part of the deal, but she once again had a moment of fear.

“The job meant flying 3,000 miles away,” she says. “I played Division I ball but not at that caliber, so I didn’t know if they’d respect me.”

Boyle, though, told Gottlieb they’d face the job together. For three years, they worked as a team, and when the opportunity came up for Gottlieb to become the head coach at UC Santa Barbara, Boyle encouraged her to take that. But three years in, Boyle left Cal for the Virginia Cavaliers and Gottlieb returned to Cal to become head coach. A few months later, the two faced off in a 59-50 Cal upset.

“Neither of us wanted to play one another,” says Gottlieb. “But what [Joanne] and I have proven over the years is that the relationship is always more important than the professional moment.”

And there are things more important than fear. While at Duke in 2001, after completing a run, Boyle felt a stabbing pain in her head. It turned out she had had a brain aneurism — and miraculously survived. So as Gottlieb hemmed and hawed over each and every decision in her life, she was reminded of what Boyle once said: When you suffer something so life-threatening — as all of us may — what is there really to be afraid of?

“As I was thinking about this Cavs offer and remembering that time, I realized, This is exactly why you have to take it,” she says.