The WNBA is headed into a really important next year-plus, as the 2025 season will be the last one under the current CBA after the WNBPA triggered their opt-out clause. With the league growing both literally (the Golden State Valkyries join in 2025, Toronto and Portland join in 2026) and figuratively (2024 broke ratings records), there is increased pressure on teams to capitalize on this moment and build a winner.
That has led to a rather wild first few weeks of the offseason in which seven of the league’s 13 teams (including the Valkyries) are without a head coach. The Sparks started things off by firing Curt Miller after two seasons, followed by the Sky firing Teresa Weatherspoon (to the dismay of Angel Reese), the Dream fired Tanisha Wright, the Wings fired Latricia Trammell, the Mystics fired Eric Thibault (and GM Mike Thibault), the Fever fired Christie Sides, and, most recently, the Sun “parted ways” with Stephanie White. All of that is to say, more than half of the league is without a head coach in one of the craziest coaching carousels in any sport in recent memory.
What makes this cycle all the more incredible is that the only hire so far this offseason has been by the Valkyries, who hired Natalie Nakase as the team’s first head coach. Usually when you get an extremely volatile coaching carousel it’s because a couple active coaches get poached by another team, setting off a domino effect. However, none of the vacancies in the WNBA are because another team hired someone away, it’s just mass turnover — although, there’s been speculation White could be leaving Connecticut for Indiana.
In any case, benches around the WNBA will look awfully different next year, and we might have a lot of new blood entering the WNBA head coaching ranks.