Why is it so arduous to discover a WNBA coach? The explanations behind the dearth of candidates

By no means has WNBA head teaching been a extra tenuous job.

Qualify for the playoffs? That didn’t spare the Atlanta Dream’s Tanisha Wright, the Indiana Fever’s Christie Sides or the Connecticut Solar’s Stephanie White from dropping their positions.

Lead a rebuilding group with budding younger expertise? That didn’t assist Curt Miller’s case with the Los Angeles Sparks or Teresa Weatherspoon’s with the Chicago Sky.

Accidents decimate your rotation? The Washington Mystics’ Eric Thibault and Dallas Wings’ Latricia Trammell had been casualties, too, regardless of loads of key gamers lacking time.

A document seven coaches had been let go for the reason that conclusion of the 2024 WNBA season. Solely the Fever and Sky have named their new coaches inside the final week. The WNBA teaching carousel continues to spin. However from the place will the following group of coaches come?

“There is no such thing as a established pool for the following wave of WNBA head coaches,” mentioned a common supervisor, who was granted anonymity because of the lack of authority to debate league issues publicly. “These coaches will come from throughout.”

The dearth of WNBA teaching candidates is just not as a result of the league doesn’t have robust tacticians or tradition builders. As an alternative, the shallow pool is because of comparatively low pay in comparison with collegiate teaching salaries, short-term contracts, instability and a failure to mentor future candidates and develop an inner pipeline.

This case is just not totally new. When the WNBA launched in 1997, hiring NBA coaches was frequent follow. By 2002, practically half of the league’s coaches had been males, with NBA veterans Michael Cooper, Invoice Laimbeer and Dee Brown amongst these on the sideline.

Organizations had been keen to shell out huge contracts, however such offers tended to go to NBA stars of the previous and a choose few high-profile ladies’s basketball stars like Cheryl Miller, Nancy Lieberman and Anne Donovan. It wasn’t till entrance places of work began to drag again and get penny-conscious that ladies started to type the majority of the teaching ranks. As an illustration, Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, who simply concluded her fifteenth season in Minnesota, is the longest-tenured coach within the league, however she needed to work as an assistant for 9 years earlier than getting a shot on the high job.

“Again then, it was the NBA guys that we needed to sit and wait and be taught from,” Reeve mentioned sarcastically, “as a result of we weren’t that seasoned in skilled basketball.”

That ready interval naturally depressed the pool of coaches keen to stay it out within the WNBA. Mixed with noncompetitive salaries and a relative lack of job safety — six franchises folded throughout the 2000s — the league struggled to draw high quality candidates throughout its early levels. Every group was allowed to make use of solely two assistants, making teaching growth a problem.

Nonetheless, the improved well being of the league lately has renewed the enchantment of the WNBA. New possession teams are participating in an arms race to supply higher facilities, like follow services, and convey on bigger assist employees and superior coaches. These adjustments will permit groups to forged a broader web when looking for a brand new head coach. A number of franchises are reaching out to NBA and NBA G League coaches along with ladies’s school basketball coaches, league sources mentioned. No less than one franchise (the Los Angeles Sparks) employed a search agency.

NBA coaches have as soon as once more set their sights on the W, together with Becky Hammon coming to the Las Vegas Aces from the San Antonio Spurs in 2022 and bringing two fellow NBA assistants to her employees. (Natalie Nakase was employed by the Golden State Valkyries and Tyler Marsh was employed by the Chicago Sky this offseason.). In the course of the 2023 offseason, Nate Tibbetts joined the Phoenix Mercury after greater than twenty years within the NBA and the G League (then D League).

Assistants who earn six figures within the NBA aren’t going to depart their jobs for a pay minimize, and each Hammon and Tibbetts turned the highest-paid WNBA coaches upon their hirings. Hammon reportedly turned the primary coach to exceed $1 million yearly, and Tibbetts reportedly earns a mean of $1.2 million yearly. Nonetheless, compensation for WNBA coaches ranges extensively. The speed in 2024 was round $350,000 to simply over $1 million yearly, mentioned GMs and brokers who had been granted anonymity to reveal salaries. They estimated the wage vary simply 5 years in the past was nearer to $150,000 to $600,000. Nonetheless, the sources mentioned most coaches earned nearer to the low finish of the vary within the 2024 season. It’s unclear how a lot the three coaches employed on this cycle are making.

Regardless of the spike in pay for some WNBA jobs, the place nonetheless lacks safety. Preliminary contract provides for brand new head coaches within the WNBA are sometimes just for two years (or two years plus a group possibility), sources mentioned, which is a disadvantage for high-profile coaches with choices. Faculty teaching contracts recurrently provide four-plus years of safety, even for youthful, less-experienced coaches, which can lead job-seeking coaches to remain in school jobs relatively than threat brief stays within the WNBA.

Faculties haven’t been a fertile recruiting floor for WNBA coaches for that purpose. Of head coaches from the final 5 seasons, solely two had latest head teaching expertise on the high-major collegiate degree.

“Nobody is gonna go away their main job on the school degree making thousands and thousands to return right here to our league,” mentioned a former WNBA head coach granted anonymity due to their need to nonetheless coach within the league.

The numerous turnover within the WNBA additionally comes amid a interval of transition in ladies’s school basketball. Final winter, greater than half of the faculty head coaches interviewed by The Athletic mentioned that adjustments within the sport — as an illustration, NIL and an open switch portal — would shorten their school teaching careers. A number of sources mentioned skilled jobs at the moment are extra interesting, however the highest-profile school coaches are nonetheless unlikely to leap to the professionals due to the stark variations in compensation and contract size.

As an alternative, profitable mid-major coaches — reminiscent of Miller, who had a embellished profession at Bowling Inexperienced, successful eight MAC titles earlier than leaping to the WNBA – would extra seemingly be focused due to the extra comparable salaries coupled with the truth that altering dynamics in collegiate athletics make sustained success difficult.

The WNBA hasn’t performed itself any favors in increasing the teaching provide by typically counting on retreads. “It’s not that totally different from the NFL. When you get in, you may get recycled,” mentioned one agent granted anonymity to talk freely in regards to the market. Twenty-six coaches in WNBA historical past have coached not less than two franchises within the league’s 28-year historical past, and 5 others have cycled again to the identical group.

Cheryl Reeve weighed in in regards to the latest teaching adjustments within the WNBA:

“I do know this — when coaches are launched from their tasks, it’s not a sign they’re not good coaches.. we don’t have any unhealthy coaches within the league.” pic.twitter.com/faULEC2vM2

— Noa Dalzell 🏀 (@NoaDalzell) October 4, 2024

League-initiated efforts have inspired WNBA gamers to pursue teaching. In 2020, a rule change allowed franchises so as to add a 3rd assistant to the teaching employees if that coach was a former WNBA participant. The brand new coverage elevated the variety of accessible assistant jobs by 50 %. At the beginning of the 2024 season, 4 head coaches had been former gamers who additionally had been WNBA assistants, every employed after the league’s adjustment.

No less than one former player-turned-coach could get employed over the following few weeks, together with present lead assistants Katie Smith (Lynx) and Kristi Toliver (Mercury). However a number of former head coaches surprise if the speedy turnover — six of the seven teaching adjustments concerned coaches who had been employed for 2 seasons or fewer — will deter youthful assistant coaches from wanting jobs this cycle, particularly if it’s their first time within the head teaching chair. Being selective about match may turn into much more vital, particularly when there are not any ensures {that a} teaching tenure lasts a number of seasons.

“If solely given two years, it barely provides them time to be taught via errors and about their very own transition to a head coach,” one other former WNBA head coach mentioned.

It additionally leaves little time for mentorship, which may skinny out the pool even additional. There have been examples wherein some established head coaches educated their successors — Lin Dunn did so with White in Indiana when she was first employed in 2015, Laimbeer with Katie Smith in New York and Dan Hughes with Noelle Quinn in Seattle — however such examples appear few and much between.

The precariousness of the place hasn’t deterred two first-time head coaches this offseason. Nakase, the inaugural head coach for Golden State, spent three seasons as a Las Vegas Aces assistant and the earlier 5 working within the NBA and G League.

Marsh, the Sky’s new head coach, has the same NBA background to Nakase and was together with her in Las Vegas for 3 seasons. Whereas Nakase offers with the uncertainty of an enlargement franchise, Marsh can be Chicago’s fourth coach within the final three years.

With two of the highest-profile assistants within the WNBA off the market, the remainder of the league is coping with an extra shortage of recent names. A scarcity of identified choices doesn’t imply potential candidates aren’t outfitted to succeed, however entrance places of work is likely to be confronted with the truth that there aren’t higher prospects than the coaches who misplaced their jobs.

Sides oversaw a dramatic turnaround in Indiana whereas Thibault had the Mystics one recreation away from the playoffs regardless of beginning the season 0-12. Weatherspoon was a revered NBA participant growth coach in New Orleans earlier than the Sky employed her. Miller led the Solar again to the playoffs after a four-year drought and led them to the WNBA Finals twice earlier than his brief stint with the Sparks. Trammell is one season faraway from Dallas’ latest excessive level.

When Valkyries president Ohemaa Nyanin was serving to the enlargement franchise establish its first coach, she mentioned the group regarded throughout the faculty, worldwide {and professional} video games earlier than touchdown on Nakase. Different groups throughout the league should be as thorough and artistic find the following wave of WNBA coaches. The consequence may imply that searches are drawn out even additional.

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photographs of Natalie Nakase, Stephanie White, Tyler Marsh and Wilson basketball: David Berding, Ethan Miller,  Steph Chambers and Katharine Lotze / Getty Photographs)