WNBA teaching adjustments for 2025: Sparks rent Utah Utes’ Roberts as head coach

After a report seven WNBA head-coaching positions have been open earlier this 12 months, they’re now all crammed.

The Dallas Wings named Chris Koclanes, a former WNBA and present USC assistant coach, as their head coach on Monday. Shortly after that the Washington Mystics named Sydney Johnson, a longtime males’s faculty coach who spent final season as a Chicago Sky assistant, their new head coach, and former WNBA participant Jamila Wideman their new normal supervisor.

We’re monitoring all of the teaching and normal supervisor adjustments this offseason.

Final up to date: Dec. 23, 2024

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Coaching changes | General manager changes

WNBA head-coaching adjustments

Washington Mystics

Former coach: Eric Thibault (fired Oct. 23)
New coach: Sydney Johnson (employed Dec. 23)

Earlier than going to the Sky final season, Johnson had spent eight years as head coach of Fairfield College males’s crew (2011-2019), main the Stags to 4 postseason appearances. Johnson began his teaching profession as an assistant at Georgetown College after which turned head coach at his alma mater, Princeton College. As a participant, he helped lead the Tigers to 2 NCAA event appearances within the Nineties. He additionally has coached with USA Basketball.

Thibault, who was let go together with his father, Mystics normal supervisor Mike Thibault, was 33-47 in two seasons, together with a 14-26 mark this season, when Washington completed one sport behind the eighth and closing playoff crew within the standings.

MORE: What the Thibaults’ exit means for the Mystics, WNBA coaching vacancies

Dallas Wings

Former coach: Latricia Trammell (fired Oct. 18)
New coach: Chris Koclanes (hired Dec. 23)

Koclanes joins the Wings from USC, the place he’s an assistant coach. He beforehand spent eight seasons within the league working beneath present Wings normal supervisor Curt Miller, who beforehand coached for the Los Angeles Sparks and Connecticut Solar.

Recognized for his defensive focus, Koclanes served as defensive coordinator beneath Miller in each Connecticut and Los Angeles and can be well-regarded for his work in participant improvement. With Koclanes on the helm, the Wings — who boast the No. 1 total decide within the 2025 WNBA Draft — will look to return to the playoffs after ending second-to-last within the standings in 2024. They beforehand let go of Latricia Trammell after the crew went 9-31 and missed the playoffs for the primary time since 2020.

Connecticut Sun

Former coach: Stephanie White (parted ways Oct. 28)
New coach: Rachid Meziane (hired Dec. 4)

Meziane involves the WNBA after years of success teaching within the French membership league and a stint because the Belgium ladies’s nationwide crew coach. The native of France most not too long ago led Villeneuve d’Ascq to the Ligue Female de Basketball (LFB) championship and a EuroLeague runner-up end throughout the 2023-24 season. Because the Belgium nationwide crew coach since 2022, he led Belgium to its first FIBA European Girls’s Championship (EuroBasket) gold medal in 2023. The nationwide crew additionally completed fourth within the Paris Olympics. Meziane was additionally an assistant coach with the France ladies’s nationwide crew from 2014 to 2021.

Los Angeles Sparks

Former coach: Curt Miller (fired Sept. 24)
New coach: Lynne Roberts (hired Nov. 19)

Roberts is the second coach this month to depart the school ranks for the WNBA. The 2023 Pac-12 coach of the 12 months, Roberts took over Utah in 2015, and guided the Utes to the NCAA event every of the previous three seasons, together with a Candy 16 look in 2023.

MORE: New Sparks coach Roberts brings player-development skills to WNBA

MORE: Utah coach Lynne Roberts saw ‘golden opportunity’ with Sparks

Atlanta Dream

Former coach: Tanisha Wright (fired Oct. 2)
New coach: Karl Smesko (hired Nov. 13)

Smesko heads to the WNBA after 23 seasons at Florida Gulf Coast, which he constructed right into a perennial NCAA event crew. Smesko is 672-139 at FGCU and boasts the third-highest successful proportion (.829) amongst energetic Division I ladies’s basketball head coaches, trailing solely UConn’s Geno Auriemma and LSU’s Kim Mulkey. The Eagles are historically one of many nation’s greatest 3-point capturing groups.

MORE: How will FGCU coach Smesko translate to the WNBA, Atlanta Dream?

Chicago Sky

Former coach: Teresa Weatherspoon (fired Sept. 26)
New coach: Tyler Marsh (hired Nov. 2)

Marsh joined the Aces in March 2022 and was an assistant on Becky Hammon’s employees for Las Vegas’ back-to-back WNBA championships in 2022 and 2023. The Aces went 77-29 over his three seasons and have been 19-6 within the playoffs. Earlier than becoming a member of the Aces, he received an NBA championship with the 2018-19 Toronto Raptors as assistant video coordinator and participant improvement coach, and spent two seasons as a participant improvement coach with the Indiana Pacers.

MORE: Are Marsh’s skill development and the Sky’s potential a perfect match?

Weatherspoon was 13-27 in a single season with the Sky, who have been in playoff competition for a lot of the second half of the season regardless of dropping rookie Angel Reese to a wrist damage for the ultimate six video games of the common season.

MORE: What’s next for Sky, Reese after Weatherspoon fired?

Indiana Fever

Former coach: Christie Sides (fired Oct. 27)
New coach: Stephanie White (hired Nov. 1)

4 days after she parted methods with the Solar, White returns to Indiana, the place she was head coach for 2 seasons in 2015 and 2016 and has a protracted tenure within the group: 4 years as a participant within the early 2000s and 4 extra as an assistant (together with the 2012 championship season) previous to her head-coaching stint.

MORE: Why White is a good fit for Fever, Clark

Sides was 33-47 in two seasons with the Fever, together with a 20-20 report this season, when she led Indiana to its first playoff berth since 2016. The Fever have been swept 2-0 within the first spherical.

MORE: What are Fever looking for in Sides’ successor?

WNBA normal supervisor adjustments

Washington Mystics

Former GM: Mike Thibault (Oct. 23)
New GM: Jamila Wideman (employed Dec. 23)

Wideman performed for a highly regarded Stanford squad that went to the ladies’s Remaining 4 three years in a row from 1995-97. Then she was picked third within the WNBA’s first faculty draft and took half within the league’s first season in 1997. In all, she performed 4 seasons within the WNBA, then went to regulation college and was a longtime prison protection and civil rights lawyer. Wideman has spent the final six years within the NBA league workplace, most not too long ago as senior vice chairman of participant improvement. — Voepel

Connecticut Sun

Former GM: Darius Taylor (Dec. 3)
New GM: Morgan Tuck (Dec. 3)

In a two-day span, the Solar remade their mind belief. However the objective stays the identical for a franchise that has made eight consecutive playoff appearances and performed in 4 whole WNBA Finals, however is in search of its first title.

“Basketball in Connecticut? You have to win,” stated former UConn participant Morgan Tuck, who was elevated to the Solar’s normal supervisor place Tuesday. “How will we make these tweaks to get to the subsequent step. To win a championship, to recover from that hump, it takes plenty of items. It isn’t that one factor that is lacking … it is type of a holistic method.”

The Solar additionally named Rachid Meziane head coach Wednesday. He has an intensive teaching historical past internationally, each in his native France and as coach of the Belgian ladies’s nationwide crew. Tuck, who performed 5 seasons within the WNBA earlier than retiring with persistent knee points, stated she turned aware of Meziane by way of watching him in FIBA competitions.

“We have been actually open-minded about what our candidate pool would appear to be,” Tuck stated. “By means of our conversations, attending to know him and who he’s as an individual, we felt like he was one of the best match for our crew.”

Solar president Jennifer Rizzotti has confused that the crew hopes for a coach who will relocate to Connecticut year-round, and it stays to be seen if Meziane and his household will do this. However as soon as Meziane joins Rizzotti, Tuck and Darius Taylor — who moved from the GM position to grow to be the crew’s chief basketball strategist and director of scouting — the Solar have rather a lot to determine for the upcoming free company interval.

Solely three gamers are beneath contract for Connecticut for 2025: guards Marina Mabrey and Tyasha Harris, and middle Olivia Nelson-Ododa. DiJonai Carrington, the WNBA’s most improved participant in 2024, is a restricted free agent. Stars Alyssa Thomas, DeWanna Bonner and Brionna Jones are all unrestricted free brokers.

Minnesota Lynx

Former GM: Clare Duwelius (Nov. 11)

Duwelius left the Lynx to grow to be GM and government vice chairman of Unequalled, the brand new 3×3 ladies’s professional league that may launch in January. The Lynx haven’t stated if they may rent one other GM. A spokeswoman advised ESPN on Monday that the franchise was nonetheless determining its front-office particulars.

May that imply that coach and crew president Cheryl Reeve resumes GM duties, a task she held within the 2018-2022 seasons? Reeve was named the WNBA’s government of the 12 months this season and in 2019. The award is voted on by the league’s different executives and was began in 2017. Reeve’s honor marked the primary time the chief of the 12 months did not have the GM position as a part of their title.

Minnesota additionally introduced Lynx assistant coach Katie Smith is transferring to her alma mater, Ohio State, to be an assistant coach. That takes her out of the pool to fill one of many WNBA head-coach openings. — Michael Voepel

Dallas Wings

Former GM: Greg Bibb (Oct. 18)
New GM: Curt Miller (Nov. 8)

Miller has been a coach for greater than 20 years. He was sought by different WNBA franchises after he was let go by the Sparks, sources advised ESPN. His determination to take the Dallas GM job wasn’t straightforward, sources additionally stated, contemplating the affect it may have on his continued position in teaching USA Basketball.

However in the end, Miller opted for one more problem and took the GM position. Close to the tip of his time as coach/GM with the Connecticut Solar, Miller advised ESPN that he thought it was changing into much less possible for one particular person to do this twin position. He thought the calls for and focus wanted for each positions have been greatest break up between two folks, and that has grow to be the norm now within the WNBA.

Miller being out of the combination for the 5 open teaching positions (plus the 2 for the 2026 growth groups) signifies that pool received weaker by way of high-quality candidates with plenty of WNBA expertise. He was on the high of the checklist there. Now, we wait to see if different not too long ago fired coaches equivalent to Latricia Trammell, Teresa Weatherspoon, Tanisha Wright, Christie Sides and Eric Thibault will transfer to different franchises. And we’re watching to see who emerges amongst candidates who have not been head coaches within the WNBA. — Voepel

Las Vegas Aces

Former GM: Natalie Williams (Oct. 26)

Williams’ contract wasn’t renewed as a part of a restructuring of the Aces’ entrance workplace (the crew’s announcement did not elaborate on what different adjustments that entails). Williams — who was employed in 2022 and performed for the franchise when it was the Utah Starzz — served as GM throughout Las Vegas’ back-to-back championship seasons. — Alexa Philippou

Indiana Fever

Former GM: Lin Dunn (Oct. 4)
New GM: Amber Cox (Oct. 4)

Cox involves the Indiana as its new chief working officer and GM after beforehand serving as COO of the Dallas Wings. Her different WNBA expertise contains stints as an government with the Connecticut Solar and Phoenix Mercury. Dunn, the longtime Fever fixture, strikes on from GM to a senior advisor position. — Philippou

Golden State Valkyries

New GM: Ohemaa Nyanin (May 6)

Nyanin, a former assistant normal supervisor with the New York Liberty, was named the primary normal supervisor of the growth Golden State Valkyries. Nyanin has in depth expertise with FIBA and USA Basketball. The crew additionally employed a vice chairman of basketball operations, Vanja Cernivec, who will report back to Nyanin. — Philippou