A prominent NBA assistant coach recently looked down at his phone as a text rolled in from his agent. It delivered an unexpected question.
Would you be interested in the WNBA?
The WNBA had never really crossed his mind. The coach, who was granted anonymity to protect future employment possibilities, was focused on becoming an NBA head coach, or perhaps jumping to the men’s college ranks in the right situation.
Even in the women’s college coaching ranks, most have historically looked to climb up the NCAA level — where the pay and prominence is higher — and win national titles rather than consider the W.
Times change, even if the timing — the NBA and college seasons have either just begun or are about to — isn’t great for available candidates.
The WNBA, unlike other basketball leagues, finishes its season in the fall, and this year seven of the league’s 12 current franchises dismissed their coach. It’s left a frenzy for replacements, a seller’s market.
As such, salaries, the NBA assistant said, are expected to hit $1 million and the Los Angeles Sparks are rumored to be willing to pay $2 million.
And that doesn’t even count the opportunity to coach the Indiana Fever and star player Caitlin Clark, who are among the teams in the market for a head coach.
What was once a coaching afterthought is, well, suddenly something different.
“I’m dug in on my team,” the NBA assistant told Yahoo Sports, “but with how much they are paying the coaches, it’s interesting.”
Or as another NBA assistant and potential head coach noted to Yahoo Sports, “It’s the first time I’ve heard this many people talking about the WNBA.”
There probably isn’t a simple reason why 58.3 percent of the league’s head coaching jobs opened at the same time.
Maybe it’s how Clark brought a surge of popularity to the league causing owners to grow more competitive or impatient. Maybe it’s how New York Liberty owners Joseph and Clara Wu Tsai poured significant resources into the club and were rewarded with a title earlier this month.
Maybe it’s how the Las Vegas Aces, who won the previous two championships, are coached by Becky Hammon, who was hired off the staff of the San Antonio Spurs with a reported $1 million salary.
Maybe it’s just seven individual situations coming to a conclusion at once.
Whatever it is, winning seems to matter a great deal.
Consider Christie Sides, the Fever’s departed coach. The team started the season 1-8, but as Clark was meshed into a team that also included 2023 WNBA Rookie of the Year Aliyah Boston, the Fever finished 20-20 and reached the playoffs for the first time since 2017.
Pretty good. It still wasn’t enough.
The Fever job is particularly appealing — not just because Clark and the other young talent make them potential title contenders soon, but the bright spotlight the franchise can bring.
This is one of the most prominent and followed franchises in the sport at any level. The Fever play in front of packed arenas both home and away, receive extensive national media coverage and routinely draw millions of viewers for regular-season games. The average television audience for an NBA game on ESPN/TNT/ABC in 2023-24 was 1.56 million. Last season, Indiana drew better than that 13 times and played in 22 games which hit a million or more viewers, including on lesser known channels such as ION. There are NBA teams that can only dream of doing that.
Being Caitlin Clark’s coach has to be good for a career.
Former Connecticut Sun coach Stephanie White is rumored to be the leading replacement, but this would be the rare WNBA job that might cause even a high-level college coach to pause and think.
That’s where the WNBA’s timing isn’t great. Top college coaches would have to bail on their team on the eve of the season. And while getting a Dawn Staley (South Carolina) or Geno Auriemma (Connecticut) to leave their well-paid fiefdoms might be impossible at any time of the year, certainly a next-level college coach might be interested by spring.
Operationally, the WNBA still isn’t a money maker, but its owners are so wealthy it doesn’t necessarily matter. The Tsais, for example, are worth an estimated $9 billion. They looked quite happy accepting the championship trophy this year.
Whatever the motivation, more than half the league is suddenly looking to upgrade its bench — including the most popular team featuring the most popular player. Salaries are being bandied about enough that even coaches who previously wouldn’t have considered it, have to consider it.
“Overall,” one NBA assistant said, “it’s impressive right now.”