Los Angeles Sparks forward Dearica Hamby filed a lawsuit against the WNBA and the Las Vegas Aces in a Nevada federal court on Monday. In an 18-page complaint, Hamby accuses her former team of mistreating and eventually trading her because she was pregnant. The complaint says both the team and league retaliated against Hamby when she posted about these incidents on social media in January of 2023.
The lawsuit restates some claims Hamby made in a similar complaint filed with the Nevada Equal Rights Commission and with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last September. Hamby, who was drafted by the Aces in 2015, signed a two-year extension with the team in June of 2022. Soon after winning the 2022 WNBA championship that September, Hamby announced she was pregnant with a second child.
“After making her pregnancy public, Plaintiff Hamby experienced notable changes in the way she was treated by Las Vegas Aces staff,” the complaint reads. It describes, as did the earlier complaint, a phone conversation Hamby had with Aces head coach Becky Hammon in January of 2023. According to both complaints, Hammon accused Hamby of “not taking proper precautions not to get pregnant” and said that by getting pregnant so soon after the contract extension, the three-time WNBA All-Star had not held up “her end of the bargain.” The next day, Hammon called Hamby to tell her, “Your time with the Aces is up.” She was traded to the Sparks the following week.
The day she was traded, Jan. 21, Hamby posted a statement on Instagram describing the conversation she’d had with Hammon, though she didn’t name Hammon in the statement. “Being traded is part of the business. Being lied to, bullied, manipulated, and discriminated against is not,” the statement began. According to the complaint, the WNBA opened an investigation into Hamby’s allegations at the request of WNBPA executive director Terri Jackson on Feb. 8. On May 16, 2023, the WNBA suspended Hammon for the first two games of the 2023 WNBA season for violating “Respect in the Workplace” policies.
Hamby’s new complaint does fill in some previous gaps in the story. When the WNBA announced Hammon’s suspension, it also punished the Aces for violating the league’s “impermissible benefits” policies; the team’s 2025 first-round pick was rescinded. In Hamby’s Instagram statement, she wrote, “I was promised things to entice me to sign my contract extension that were not followed through on.” The line implied possible salary cap circumvention. (The Aces are currently the focus of a separate investigation related to salary cap circumvention.) The complaint filed Monday, for the first time, explains what Hamby was promised during the contract negotiations (emphasis mine):
In an effort to deter Hamby from entering the free agency market, where she would have been one of the more compelling available players, Defendant Las Vegas Aces offered her a two-year contract extension. In connection with this offer, the Defendant Las Vegas Aces promised Hamby certain benefits and inducements outside of the contract to entice Hamby to sign. These benefits included, but were not limited to, an agreement by the Las Vegas Aces to cover the private school tuition costs for Hamby’s daughter, Amaya, in the form of a “donation” to Amaya’s school. Additionally, Defendant Las Vegas Aces agreed to allow Hamby to occupy team-provided housing accommodations, though Hamby also had a separate residence in Nevada. This would allow Hamby’s family to assist with childcare for Amaya while Plaintiff Hamby was traveling for road games.
The complaint says that after Hamby announced her pregnancy in 2022, Aces general manager Natalie Williams and president Nikki Fargas seemed less committed to covering the tuition costs:
[W]hen Amaya’s school tuition became due in September 2022 and Plaintiff Hamby inquired with General Manager Williams and Las Vegas Aces President, Nikki Fargas, about it, Williams and Fargas informed Plaintiff Hamby that they were “working on it,” but provided no date by which the “donation” for Amaya’s tuition would be made.
[…]
In November 2022, Plaintiff Hamby again followed up with Williams and Fargas regarding Defendant Las Vegas Aces’ promise to cover tuition costs for Hamby’s daughter Amaya. Plaintiff Hamby was told they were “still figuring it out,” but she was given no date by which the tuition payment would be paid.
The complaint also says Hamby was asked to vacate the team-provided housing in October of 2022, without being given an explanation.
These facts presumably surfaced in the WNBA’s investigation, which the league has said included interviews with 33 people. But Hamby’s complaint names the WNBA as a defendant here, too, and says the league “did not impose adequate punishment or consequences” on the Aces and “provided no meaningful redress” to Hamby for the harm she suffered. According to the complaint, the WNBA interviewed no Aces players as part of its investigation.
The complaint says that after Hamby engaged in “protected activity” by publicly complaining about the trade, both the league and team retaliated. The Aces did so, the complaint says, by telling players and staff not to communicate with Hamby; by trying to obtain Hamby’s private medical records after she was informed of the trade; by not inviting her to the White House championship celebration; and by giving team video personnel “a directive…at a September 17, 2023, Las Vegas Aces playoff game prohibiting the showing of Plaintiff’s daughter, Amaya, on the arena’s video screen, despite the fact that Plaintiff’s daughter was often previously shown on such video screen and was a fan favorite.” After Hamby went public with her statement, the league did not extend the league marketing contract she had signed the previous year; as part of the 2020 CBA, the WNBA can sign players to act as year-round brand ambassadors. “We are aware of today’s legal filing and are reviewing the complaint,” a WNBA spokesperson told The Athletic yesterday. The Aces have yet to make a public statement.
The full complaint can be read below:
