{"id":720097,"date":"2026-06-07T01:29:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T01:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/720097\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T01:29:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T01:29:18","slug":"chelsea-gray-becomes-aces-all-time-assists-leader-passing-becky-hammon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/720097\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea Gray becomes Aces&#8217; all-time assists leader, passing Becky Hammon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Early in the fourth quarter on Saturday afternoon, <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/players\/26677818\/chelsea-gray\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chelsea Gray<\/a> took control of the <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/teams\/LVA\/las-vegas-aces\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Las Vegas Aces<\/a>&#8216; offense and surveyed the scene in front of her. She wanted to get the ball to <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/players\/26677908\/aja-wilson\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">A&#8217;ja Wilson<\/a> in the post, but the <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/teams\/GS\/golden-state-valkyries\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Golden State Valkyries<\/a> wouldn&#8217;t allow it, so she quickly shifted her vision and skipped a pass across the court to <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/players\/26678064\/jewell-loyd\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jewell Loyd<\/a>, who buried a wide-open 3-pointer.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The assist was Gray&#8217;s sixth of the game and her 1,134th in an Aces uniform, which moved her past her coach, <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/players\/1105013\/becky-hammon\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Becky Hammon<\/a>, for the most assists in franchise history. Gray now has 1,941 career assists, which is sixth all-time and second among active players, trailing only <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/players\/1837066\/courtney-vandersloot\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Courtney Vandersloot<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Gray finished with 12 points, six rebounds, six assists and two steals as the Aces beat the Valkyries in dramatic fashion, 84-79, for their first home win of the season. The Aces also got 28 points and 14 rebounds from Wilson &#8212; who surpassed Hammon on the Aces&#8217; all-time scoring list earlier this season &#8212; and 27 points, five rebounds and five assists from <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/players\/26678025\/jackie-young\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jackie Young<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s awesome, it&#8217;s unbelievable,&#8221; Hammon said, after joking that she was going to pull Gray out of the game to keep her record for a few more days. &#8220;She&#8217;s one of the greatest to ever do it. It&#8217;s actually fun for me, because who cares about records? They&#8217;re meant to be broken and you want the next generation to be better than your generation, and they are. I&#8217;m super proud of who Chelsea is.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gray, 33, said her record wouldn&#8217;t be possible without the &#8220;great players&#8221; she&#8217;s played with in Las Vegas. On Saturday, she assisted Wilson, Young and Loyd, who have a combined 17 All-Star and 11 All-WNBA appearances. She also noted that she was aware she was closing in on the record earlier in the week, but had forgotten by tip-off time.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a testament to all the players that I&#8217;ve been able to play with,&#8221; Gray said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve played with some great players and I&#8217;m currently playing with great players. You need a little help to get those assists, so I&#8217;m just blessed to be in the position that I am &#8212; healthy, having fun doing it and enjoying the moment.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Aces&#8217; all-time assist leaderboard<\/p>\n<p>Gray, the No. 11 pick in the 2014 WNBA Draft, spent the first six seasons of her career with the <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/teams\/CT\/connecticut-sun\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Connecticut Sun<\/a> and <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/teams\/LAS\/los-angeles-sparks\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Sparks<\/a> before signing with the Aces in free agency in 2021. Since her arrival, the Aces have never won fewer than 24 games in a season and have never been eliminated prior to the semifinals of the playoffs. They&#8217;ve also made four Finals appearances and won championships in 2022, 2023 and 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Gray, who was named Finals MVP in 2022 when the Aces won their first-ever title, was already firmly established as one of the best players in franchise history. The assists record only cements her place.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s crazy to me, and it happens so often. We&#8217;ll come in and I&#8217;m about to call a play and she calls the exact same play. It happens so frequently, I&#8217;m about to say something and it&#8217;s like she&#8217;s reading my thoughts out there,&#8221; Hammon said. &#8220;I&#8217;m thinking in my head, I&#8217;m like, &#8216;I was just about to say that.&#8217; Her mind is a beautiful mind for the game.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s gonna smash that record,&#8221; Hammon continued. &#8220;She&#8217;s got a lot of years left.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Early in the fourth quarter on Saturday afternoon, Chelsea Gray took control of the Las Vegas Aces&#8216; offense&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[4662,8133,49,48,12199,3458,53253,260424,1612,4661,16666,631,3460,632,82,630],"class_list":["post-720097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-aja-wilson","tag-becky-hammon","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chelsea-gray","tag-connecticut-sun","tag-courtney-vandersloot","tag-danielle-robinson","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-jackie-young","tag-jewell-loyd","tag-kelsey-plum","tag-las-vegas-aces","tag-los-angeles-sparks","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}