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Sacramento to add Nancy Lieberman as assistant coach: 'I am a King'

Nancy Lieberman's plaque in the Basketball Hall of Fame will need an update befitting something more than a footnote.

Lieberman on Thursday said she will accept an offer to join the Sacramento Kings as an assistant coach, making her the second female coach in history to join an NBA staff after Becky Hammon was hired by the San Antonio Spurs in April 2014.

"I am a King," Lieberman told ESPN Radio's Ian Fitzsimmons via text.

A formal announcement is expected next week.

"Definitely I'm going to offer her a job," Kings vice president Vlade Divac told the Sacramento Bee, which also reported Lieberman had said she would take the position.

"George (Karl) and I talked about bringing her back after she helped us at Summer League (in Las Vegas)," Divac said of the Kings' coach. "She was terrific. She brings a different dimension. I think it is a nice opportunity for her."

Lieberman, a 57-year-old Brooklyn native, is no stranger to coaching. She coached the D-League's Texas Legends from 2009 to '11 before moving into the front office of the Dallas Mavericks affiliate for a year as an assistant general manager.

Her coaching position with the expansion team marked the first time a woman had coached a men's team under the NBA's umbrella.

Lieberman will be leaving Fox Sports Oklahoma, where she has worked since 2012 covering the Oklahoma City Thunder as a pregame and postgame analyst.

Inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1996, Lieberman made her WNBA debut as a player with the Phoenix Mercury at age 39 and later made a brief comeback with the Detroit Shock at 50 after coaching the Shock years earlier.

Information from ESPN's Marc Stein and The Associated Press was used in this report.