• Michael Voepel

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    Michael Voepel

    ESPN.com

      Michael Voepel is a senior writer who covers the WNBA, women’s college basketball and other college sports. Voepel began covering women’s basketball in 1984, and has been with ESPN since 1996.

  • Alexa Philippou

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    Alexa Philippou

    ESPN

    • Covers women’s college basketball and the WNBA
    • Previously covered UConn and the WNBA Connecticut Sun for the Hartford Courant
    • Stanford graduate and Baltimore native with further experience at the Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times and Cincinnati Enquirer

Oct 10, 2024, 08:21 PM ET

Natalie Nakase, the Golden State Valkyries’ new head coach, has a wide range of coaching experience and spent the past three seasons on Becky Hammon’s Las Vegas Aces staff.

Nakase, who played at UCLA, is a Southern California native who began her coaching career in Germany in 2008. She also coached in Japan — her parents are second-generation Japanese Americans — before moving to the NBA, where she worked with the Los Angeles Clippers and their G League affiliate for a decade.

Nakase and Hammon both were considered to potentially become the first female NBA head coach. Both moved to the WNBA in 2022 and have had a lot of success with back-to-back championships.

Now, Nakase will guide the WNBA’s first expansion team since the Atlanta Dream in 2008. ESPN looks at what that means for the Valkyries, Nakase and the WNBA.

Is Nakase’s hiring a surprise or somewhat expected?

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Michael Voepel: It’s not a surprise when you consider the experience she has and how highly she’s regarded for her work in the NBA and WNBA. Longtime women’s basketball fans will remember Nakase from her days as a UCLA walk-on who became the team’s starting point guard. She was known for her grit and determination then, and those qualities have carried through in her coaching.

Nakase interviewed for the Phoenix Mercury‘s head-coaching position in 2022 — which went to Vanessa Nygaard, who stayed in the role less than a season and a half, going 17-31. In that time, Nakase raised her WNBA profile with how well the Aces played, and it makes sense for her to now move into a head-coaching role in the league.

Nakase’s experience in the WNBA also allows her to provide a lot of insight for the Valkyries and general manager Ohemaa Nyanin for the upcoming expansion draft.

What does this hire tell us about the Valkyries?

Alexa Philippou: It’s perhaps not surprising the Valkyries, who are owned by the Warriors, went with someone with NBA ties. It’s also notable that two of their major basketball hires, Nyanin and now Nakase, are from the New York Liberty and Aces, respectively — teams that have separated themselves by attracting (and developing) top talent and providing quality resources for their athletes.

Nakase spent part of her introductory news conference talking about the importance for WNBA franchises to have their own dedicated practice facilities year-round, which she had with the Aces and will with the Valkyries.

Las Vegas was the best team in the league in 2022 and 2023 (winning titles both those years), while New York was the best in the 2024 regular season and is on the cusp of being the last team standing now. With Nakase and Nyanin leading the way, and the Warriors’ championship DNA to learn from, the Valkyries are hoping to replicate that sort of success, albeit while having to build a franchise and roster entirely from scratch.

What is Nakase’s first order of business?

Voepel: Figuring out the expansion draft, which is Dec. 6, as well as which players the team can expect may be available and how they could fit together. We still don’t know where Golden State will pick in the first round of April’s draft, although it’s been assumed it will be at No. 5, right after the lottery.

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The vast majority of players in the WNBA have no memory of when the league last had an expansion team, so they will be watching to see how the Valkyries conduct business. That will in part determine how desirable a destination the franchise is for free agents. For those with California ties, Golden State provides a second market. But the Bay Area also has a high cost of living — still a consideration for WNBA players who may be looking to make the region their full-time home.

How Nakase leads the Valkyries in their first season will make a big difference in how the WNBA players eventually regard it as a destination franchise.

Editor’s note: After Nakase was named coach earlier in the day, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced Thursday night that the expansion draft for the Valkyries will be Nov. 17 (5 p.m., ESPN). It was also confirmed that the Valkyries will pick fifth in every round of the standard draft in April.

How does Nakase’s move to Golden State impact the Aces?

Voepel: The growth of the Aces’ guards since Nakase came to Las Vegas has been notable, as has her work with the team’s defense.

The Aces have stayed largely intact from a personnel standpoint for the past three seasons, so this does make a difference for them. Player-wise, Las Vegas has most of its core guaranteed to return in 2025, but guard Kelsey Plum is a free agent.

How does this impact the other WNBA coaching vacancies?

Voepel: The Los Angeles Sparks (Curt Miller), Chicago Sky (Teresa Weatherspoon) and Atlanta Dream (Tanisha Wright) all fired their coaches at the end of this season. None were in those jobs very long: three years for Wright, two for Miller and one for Weatherspoon.

Weatherspoon’s firing was the biggest surprise, considering she seemed to have a good relationship with Chicago’s young star Angel Reese, and no one was really expecting much from the rebuilding Sky this season.

Even after 28 WNBA seasons, there are still a limited number of people with a lot of experience as a WNBA head coach. Might the Sparks, Sky, Dream or either of the 2026 expansion teams (Toronto and Portland) give an assistant such as longtime WNBA player Kristi Toliver a chance to be a head coach? She also has worked in the NBA and was an assistant this season to the Mercury’s first-year coach Nate Tibbett.

There also might still be moves from other current WNBA head coaches going elsewhere. This coaching carousel could be spinning for a while.

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