In the next few weeks, WNBA general managers and head coaches will gather at their annual fall competition meeting to review the 2024 season and discuss potential changes for the upcoming year. In past meetings, enough coaches attended to theoretically play a game of five-on-five. This year, there will be barely enough to play three-on-three.
Nearly 60 percent of last season’s WNBA’s head coaches lost their jobs this offseason, making this a busy, and historic, fall. The seven changes are the most for one cycle in league history.
Three franchises parted ways with coaches (Tanisha Wright, Christie Sides and Stephanie White) despite making the playoffs. Sides helped the Fever increase their win total by seven games in Caitlin Clark’s record-setting rookie season. White was a year removed from winning Coach of the Year and just four quarters away from a WNBA Finals berth. Only two years removed from a finals appearance with the Sun, Curt Miller was out after rebuilding the Los Angeles Sparks roster.
Each coaching change has its own context, but some stakeholders are drawing a throughline among them, pointing to the greater stakes on the line as the league grows at record rates.
“You would never see this total volume without the shifting WNBA,” said one current general manager, who was granted anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak on league matters. “The amount that we have right now is partly because all eyes are on the W. Owners who didn’t care before care now.”
The WNBA is in an unprecedented period of growth. It is a part of the cultural sports consciousness like never before as it comes off the most-viewed finals in 25 years, the most-viewed regular season on ESPN, and viewership records at the All-Star Game and draft. A new landmark media rights deal worth more than $2 billion will go into effect in 2026. Expansion franchise value is significantly higher than it was even 18 months ago with the next generation of stars like Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins looming.
That boom, some suggest, is impacting coaching stability.
“When an owner’s thumb is on a scale, the first thing to go is the coach,” said Fred Williams, a former WNBA head coach speaking to the current coaching climate.
The firing spree marks a notable change in the WNBA. But the reality is that it makes the WNBA like practically every other sports league.
Some owners have looked at their franchises and presumably sought change. And who did they view as expendable?
“The most volatile spot for that when people want change is the head coach, across all professional sports,” the general manager said.
The unfortunate reality for head coaches across various sports is that victories don’t always translate to stability. Recent NBA history has seen coaches fired after winning Coach of the Year (Dwane Casey), within one year of making conference finals (Darvin Ham) and two of winning the Larry O’Brien trophy (Mike Budenholzer). Yet, the NBA and G League have become mining fields for WNBA replacements; Aces coach Becky Hammon and Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts notably left NBA assistant positions for head roles in the WNBA.
For WNBA coaches, the league is no longer an oasis in which sustained success will lead to job security.
“Are we in unprecedented times? Are we in this space where people want to capitalize on, and they feel like they need something different?” said Cheryl Reeve, Minnesota Lynx coach and president of basketball operations. “That might be sort of … the energy that you’re seeing from these executives that are making these decisions.”
Some of the changes might not be unjustified. League sources suggested that some franchises are trying to get ahead of the WNBA’s biggest free agency yet in 2026 by seeking to build strong foundations this offseason. (Only two players not on rookie-scale contracts are signed to contracts past that year.)
The wave of coaching changes has spanned more than a month. Some teams that missed the playoffs (Dallas and Washington) waited more than four weeks between the end of their seasons and the announcement of their moves. Their coaches sat in exit meetings. It begs the question: Does every team have a clear plan for their next step?
Let’s answer that question with another one: Who will these teams hire?
While there is prestige in being one of only 12 — 13, come next spring — WNBA head coaches, compensation for WNBA coaches ranges widely. The rate entering this offseason was around $350,000 to just over $1 million annually, league sources said. Contracts are often shorter than college coaching deals. This cycle was a reminder that job stability is often lacking — six of the seven coaching changes involved coaches who had been employed for two seasons or fewer.
Plus, in recent seasons, coaches have seen their power across organizations diminish. Not long ago, another shift in the coaching ranks occurred: WNBA franchises began moving away from a dual coach-general manager role.
Reeve, the league’s longest-tenured coach, has final player personnel decision-making, but she is the lone active coach to hold both positions. The move to split GM and coach responsibilities into two positions signaled that ownership groups were interested in expanding their front offices and investing in top decision-making talent. It was a recognition that the jobs are too big and important for one person. But that change also led to more coach accountability (or at least made a coach more vulnerable, depending on one’s perspective). What coach would willingly fire themselves from both roles?
This isn’t the WNBA of the past where, as one general manager put it, you can “just be a good person and survive five to 10 years.”
It’s no longer even survival-of-the-most-successful.
It’s a new era in more ways than one. What’s happening is a historical anomaly in the WNBA. But it isn’t across the modern sports landscape. For coaches looking for stability, the WNBA is no longer a hideaway.
— The Athletic
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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