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Finals Timeline: the intertwined history of the 2019 WNBA finalists

By Kurtis Zimmerman

5/21/04 - Former University of MN Gopher star Lindsey Whalen makes the transition to the pros, training with the Connecticut Sun in preparation for her first WNBA season, which opens Saturday against Phoenix. THIS PHOTO: Whalen, second player from left, cheers for her teammates during a scrimmage at the team's Connecticut College practice site. The scrimmage against a group of male players, helped to prepare the Sun for their feason opener this Saturday night. At far left is head coach Mike Thibault. (Photo by JUDY GRIESEDIECK/Star Tribune via Getty Images)
5/21/04 - Former University of MN Gopher star Lindsey Whalen makes the transition to the pros, training with the Connecticut Sun in preparation for her first WNBA season, which opens Saturday against Phoenix. THIS PHOTO: Whalen, second player from left, cheers for her teammates during a scrimmage at the team's Connecticut College practice site. The scrimmage against a group of male players, helped to prepare the Sun for their feason opener this Saturday night. At far left is head coach Mike Thibault. (Photo by JUDY GRIESEDIECK/Star Tribune via Getty Images) /
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LOS ANGELES – 1982: The 1981-82 NBA Champion Los Angeles Lakers pose for a team portrait at the Forum in Los Angeles, California. Front row (left to right): Owner Jerry Buss, Jim Brewer, Kurt Rambis, Jamaal Wilkes, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Cooper, Norm Nixon, Earvin (Magic) Johnson, General Manager Bill Sharman. Back row: Head Coach Pat Riley, assistant coach Bill Bertka, Eddie Jordan, Kevin McKenna, Mitch Kupchak, Bob McAdoo, Mark Landsberger, Mike McGee, assistant coach Mike Thibault and Trainer Jack Curran. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory copyright notice: Copyright NBAE 2002 (Photo by NBA Photo Library/ NBAE/ Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES – 1982: The 1981-82 NBA Champion Los Angeles Lakers pose for a team portrait at the Forum in Los Angeles, California. Front row (left to right): Owner Jerry Buss, Jim Brewer, Kurt Rambis, Jamaal Wilkes, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Cooper, Norm Nixon, Earvin (Magic) Johnson, General Manager Bill Sharman. Back row: Head Coach Pat Riley, assistant coach Bill Bertka, Eddie Jordan, Kevin McKenna, Mitch Kupchak, Bob McAdoo, Mark Landsberger, Mike McGee, assistant coach Mike Thibault and Trainer Jack Curran. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory copyright notice: Copyright NBAE 2002 (Photo by NBA Photo Library/ NBAE/ Getty Images) /

Prior to the WNBA

None of the players on the two teams’ rosters were born before the mid-1980s, but by the time any of them started to hone their craft, their coaches were already becoming masters of theirs.

Mystics assistant coach Marianne Stanley has been around women’s basketball the longest, a Women’s Basketball Hall of Famer herself. Out of Pennsylvania, she played at the famed Immaculata College in the mid-1970s, part of the school’s six straight AIAW Final Fours and three straight national championships from 1972 to 1974.

She began coaching shortly thereafter at her alma mater, followed by her first head coaching position at Old Dominion University, where she led the team to two AIAW titles and the 1985 NCAA Championship. She went on to coaching stints at Penn, USC, Stanford, and Cal through the late ’80s and ’90s.

All the while, Mike Thibault came out of Saint Martin’s University in the Pacific Northwest and started working in the NBA for the Los Angeles Lakers as a scout and later as an assistant coach as part of their title runs in the early 80s, followed by a stint with the Chicago Bulls through the mid-80s.

His first head coaching opportunity came in the World Basketball League with the Calgary 88’s, followed by a long run in the Continental Basketball Association with the Omaha Racers, a perennial playoff team and title winner in 1993. Thibault returned to the NBA as an assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks at the turn of the century while the WNBA was in its infancy.

Throughout the 1990s Miller spent time as an assistant coach at Cleveland State, Syracuse, and Colorado State, where he worked with future Sun assistant and 2018 WNBA Coach of the Year Nicki Collen. That led to his hiring at Bowling Green in 2001, where he would spend the next decade.

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