Coach of the Year is one of the more difficult awards to decide on this WNBA season. Cheryl Reeve is the obvious candidate. She took a Minnesota Lynx team that everyone was writing off as a title contender after Napheesa Collier’s injury and several big offseason departures and turned it into the No. 1 seed. She also became the winningest coach in WNBA history.
However, Sydney Johnson and Natalie Nakase are making the choice much more difficult than it may seem at first glance. Johnson turned a group of first- and second-year players into a legitimate playoff team with a strong identity. Shakira Austin has now had two career years under his coaching.
Nakase already did the impossible last year when she took an expansion team to the playoffs in its first season. What she has done this year is perhaps even more impressive. The Valkyries added Gabby Williams, who was fresh off her first All-Star selection. Williams is a star, but the Valkyries still don’t have an MVP-level player. Nevertheless, Nakase coached them to the second-best record in the W with a chance of leapfrogging the Lynx for first place. That’s not an easy thing to do without a player like A’ja Wilson or Olivia Miles in a franchise’s second season.
If Nakase won Coach of the Year, she would be the first coach to win the award in back-to-back seasons since Van Chancellor when the league first started.
A different coach has won Coach of the Year every year since 1999
Van Chancellor coached the Houston Comets to four consecutive WNBA titles between 1997 and 2000. So, it’s not a surprise that he dominated the Coach of the Year award for the league’s first three seasons.
Since then, several coaches have won multiple Coach of the Year awards—Cheryl Reeve has four, for example—but none of them did it back-to-back. The closest was Mike Thibault, who won in 2006 and then again in 2008.
Reeve already holds the record for most Coach of the Year awards. If she adds a fifth, she will be pretty much untouchable. No other active coach has more than one—not even Becky Hammon. Of course, that would change if Nakase won again.
The playoffs will be a new challenge for Nakase
Nakase has excelled in the regular season, making the most of the Valkyries’ depth and really doubling down on her defensive principles. This year, she will have to prove herself in the playoffs as well.
Last year, just being there was an accomplishment for the Valkyries, and they really didn’t stand a chance against the Lynx. This year, there are expectations.
As the No. 2 seed, the Valkyries are expected to make some noise in the playoffs and maybe even compete for a title. That will be a new experience for most players on the team and for Nakase. She was an assistant coach on a championship team before but never had to lead a potential contender by herself.
Add us as a preferred source on Google