Why is it so hard to find a WNBA coach? The reasons behind the lack of candidates

WNBA head coaching has never been a more difficult job.

Qualify for the play-offs? That hasn’t stopped Atlanta Dream’s Tanisha Wright, Indiana Fever’s Christie Sides and Connecticut Sun’s Stephanie White from losing their positions.

Are you leading a reconstruction team with emerging young talent? That didn’t help Curt Miller’s case with the Los Angeles Sparks or Teresa Weatherspoon’s case with the Chicago Sky.

Injuries decimating your rotation? Washington Mystics’ Eric Thibault and Dallas Wings’ Latricia Trammell were also casualties, despite many key players missing time.

A record seven coaches have been fired since the end of the 2024 WNBA season. Only the Fever and Sky named their new coaches in the past week. The WNBA coaching carousel continues to spin. But where will the next group of coaches come from?

“There is no established pool for the next wave of WNBA head coaches,” said one general manager, who was granted anonymity because of the lack of authority to publicly discuss league matters. “These coaches will come from everywhere.”

The shortage of WNBA coaching candidates isn’t because the league lacks strong tactics or culture builders. Instead, the shallow pool is due to relatively low wages compared to collegiate coaching salaries, short-term contracts, instability and the inability to mentor prospective candidates and develop an internal pipeline.

This situation is not entirely new. When the WNBA started in 1997, hiring NBA coaches was common. In 2002, nearly half of the league’s coaches were men, with NBA veterans Michael Cooper, Bill Laimbeer and Dee Brown among those on the sidelines.

Organizations were willing to hand out large contracts, but such deals usually went to past NBA stars and a select few high-profile women’s basketball stars such as Cheryl Miller, Nancy Lieberman and Anne Donovan. It wasn’t until front offices started to step back and realize the penny-pinching nature that women began to make up the bulk of the coaching ranks. For example, Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, who just completed her 15th season in Minnesota, is the longest-tenured coach in the league, but she had to spend nine years as an assistant before getting a shot at the top job.

“Back then, it was the NBA guys we had to wait and learn from,” Reeve said sarcastically, “because we weren’t that experienced in professional basketball.”

That waiting period obviously put pressure on the group of coaches who were willing to stick it out in the WNBA. Combined with uncompetitive salaries and a relative lack of job security — six franchises went bankrupt in the 2000s — the league struggled to attract quality candidates in its early stages. Each team was allowed to hire only two assistants, making coaching development a challenge.

However, the improved health of the league in recent years has renewed the WNBA’s appeal. New ownership groups are engaged in an arms race to provide better amenities, such as practice facilities, and to attract larger support staffs and superior coaches. These changes will allow teams to cast a wider net when searching for a new head coach. Multiple franchises are reaching out to NBA and NBA G League coaches, in addition to women’s basketball coaches, league sources say. At least one franchise (the Los Angeles Sparks) has hired a search firm.

NBA coaches have once again set their sights on the W, including Becky Hammon who joins the Las Vegas Aces from the San Antonio Spurs in 2022 and adds two fellow NBA assistants to her staff. (Natalie Nakase was hired by the Golden State Valkyries this season and Tyler Marsh was hired by the Chicago Sky.). During the 2023 offseason, Nate Tibbetts joined the Phoenix Mercury after more than two decades in the NBA and G League (then D League).

Assistants making six figures in the NBA won’t leave their jobs because of a pay cut, and both Hammon and Tibbetts became the highest-paid WNBA coaches after their hires. Hammon reportedly became the first coach to earn more than $1 million annually, and Tibbetts reportedly earns an average of $1.2 million annually. Still, compensation for WNBA coaches varies widely. By 2024, the rate was about $350,000 to just over $1 million a year, said general managers and agents granted anonymity to disclose salaries. They estimate that the salary range was closer to $150,000 to $600,000 just five years ago. Still, the sources say most coaches earned closer to the lower end of the range in the 2024 season. It is unclear how much the three coaches hired in this cycle make.

Despite the spike in pay for some WNBA jobs, the position is still not safe. Initial contract offers for new head coaches in the WNBA are often only for two years (or two years plus a team option), sources said, which is a disadvantage for high-profile coaches with options. College coaching contracts regularly offer more than four years of security, even for younger, less experienced coaches, which can lead to coaches looking for a job staying in college rather than risking a short stay in the WNBA.

For that reason, colleges have not been fertile recruiting grounds for WNBA coaches. Of the head coaches over the past five seasons, only two had recent head coaching experience at the high collegiate level.

“No one is going to leave their main job at the college level and make millions to come here to our league,” said a former WNBA head coach who was granted anonymity due to their desire to still coach in the league.

The significant turnover in the WNBA also comes amid a transition period in women’s basketball. Last winter, more than half of college head coaches were interviewed by The Athletics said changes in the sport – for example NIL and an open transfer portal – would shorten their college coaching careers. Multiple sources said professional jobs are now more attractive, but it is still unlikely that top college coaches will move to the pros because of the wide disparity in pay and contract lengths.

Instead, successful mid-major coaches – like Miller, who had a distinguished career at Bowling Green and won eight MAC titles before jumping to the WNBA – would be more likely to be targeted because of the more comparable salaries combined with the fact that the changing dynamics in WNBA collegiate athletics make sustainable success a challenge.

The WNBA has not done itself any favors in expanding its coaching offerings by often relying on innovations. “It’s not that different from the NFL. Once you get in, you can be recycled,” said an agent who granted anonymity to speak freely about the market. Twenty-six coaches in WNBA history have coached at least two franchises in the league’s 28-year history, and five others have returned to the same team.

Cheryl Reeve weighed in on the recent coaching changes in the WNBA:

“I do know this: When coaches are relieved of their responsibilities, it doesn’t mean they aren’t good coaches. We don’t have bad coaches in the league.” pic.twitter.com/faULEC2vM2

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

League-initiated efforts have encouraged WNBA players to pursue coaching. In 2020, a rule change allowed franchises to add a third assistant to the coaching staff if that coach was a former WNBA player. The new policy increased the number of assistant jobs available by 50 percent. At the start of the 2024 season, four head coaches were former players who had also been WNBA assistants, each hired after the league realigned.

At least one former player-turned-coach could be hired in the coming weeks, including current lead assistants Katie Smith (Lynx) and Kristi Toliver (Mercury). But several former head coaches wonder whether the rapid turnover — six of the seven coaching changes involved coaches with two seasons or less on the job — will deter younger assistant coaches from wanting a job this cycle, especially if it’s their first times in head coaching. chair. Being selective about fitness can become even more important, especially when there are no guarantees that a coaching tenure will last multiple seasons.

“If they only get two years, it hardly gives them time to learn from mistakes and their own transition to head coach,” said another former WNBA head coach.

It also leaves little time for mentorship, which can thin the pool even further. There have been examples of some established head coaches training their successors – Lin Dunn did so with White in Indiana when she was first hired in 2015, Laimbeer with Katie Smith in New York and Dan Hughes with Noelle Quinn in Seattle – but such examples seem few and far between.

The uncertainty of the position hasn’t deterred two new head coaches this season. Nakase, Golden State’s first head coach, spent three seasons as a Las Vegas Aces assistant and spent the previous five seasons in the NBA and G League.

Marsh, Sky’s new head coach, has a similar NBA background to Nakase and was with her for three seasons in Las Vegas. While Nakase deals with the uncertainty of an expansion franchise, Marsh will be Chicago’s fourth coach in the last three years.

With two of the top assistants in the WNBA off the market, the rest of the league faces a further dearth of new names. A lack of known options doesn’t mean prospects aren’t equipped to succeed, but front offices may be faced with the fact that there are no better prospects than the coaches who lost their jobs.

Sides oversaw a dramatic turnaround in Indiana, while Thibault kept the Mystics one game away from the playoffs despite starting the season 0-12. Weatherspoon was a respected NBA player development coach in New Orleans before the Sky hired her. Miller led the Sun back to the playoffs after a four-year drought and led them to the WNBA Finals twice before his brief stint with the Sparks. Trammell is one season removed from Dallas’ recent high.

When Valkyries president Ohemaa Nyanin helped the expansion franchise identify its first coach, she said the organization scoured college, international and professional competitions before landing on Nakase. Other teams around the league will have to be just as thorough and creative in finding the next wave of WNBA coaches. The result could mean searches are stretched even further.

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