WNBA head coaches often have a variety of different backgrounds. Many coached women’s basketball at a lower level before becoming a professional head coach. Some started as WNBA assistant coaches. Several of the league’s current head coaches are former WNBA players with key on-court experience.
Phoenix Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts’s path to the WNBA is unique compared to his peers. He was hired with no previous women’s basketball experience, building his career as a former G-League head coach and longtime NBA assistant. But through the first portion of his debut season, Tibbetts’s NBA experience has been viewed as a strength, rather than a weakness.
The NBA’s influence on Tibbetts’s coaching style was evident in the Mercury’s first several games. Through the first five games, Phoenix averaged 32 3-point attempts per game, shooting over 40% in three of those contests. Throughout the NBA, three-point shot attempts have steadily been on the rise, and Tibbetts’s mindset on the deep ball was further developed by his time with the Portland Trailblazers.
“I would say, probably, my time in Portland was a big part,” Tibbetts told reporters. “We had two pretty good shooters, in [Damian Lillard] and CJ [McCollum], and then the guy that I worked for, Terry Stotts, was one of the best offensive minds I’ve been around, and so that’s a philosophy that we kind of fell into because of not only Terry’s beliefs but the guys that we had and how we wanted to play.”
Although the Mercury’s 3-point shooting has gone through many ups and downs this season, the Mercury are third in the league in 3-point attempts with 26.6 per game and fifth in 3-point percentage at 33.7%.
High-volume 3-point shooting isn’t the only aspect of the NBA Tibbetts brought with him. Overall the Mercury strive to play a fast-paced spread offense that utilizes versatile players who can fill a variety of spots on the floor.
Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon pointed out the characteristics of this year’s Mercury and the similarities with her team when Hammon and the Aces visited Phoenix back in June. Hammon also spent considerable time coaching in the NBA, spending seven seasons as an assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs.
“He knows what he’s doing,” Hammon told reporters then. “He knows basketball. That’s number one. He’s a guy that’s gonna put in the work. He’s gonna study and know the league quickly. … What I like about him is he does unorthodox things. He kind of thinks outside the box, and I kind of like that. So when I’m going back and looking at things that they’re doing, what they’re trying to take away, I like the little chess match with him because he doesn’t do stuff traditionally.”
The impact of Tibbetts’s NBA background isn’t only apparent in his schemes and play designs. It’s also clear in the way he coaches his team and the mindset he’s instilled in his players from the early parts of the season.
“I just think the way that they treat us like pros, they put a lot of trust in us,” Mercury guard Sophie Cunningham told reporters. “They give us a lot of freedom, which we haven’t had before, but it’s a good balance. When we’re in, we’re in, and we’re working hard, I’ll tell you that. They expect that. But, when we’re not between the lines, they’re chill, and they treat us like normal humans, which is great.”
Tibbetts’s demeanor as a coach is something else he picked up from the coaches he worked under. At various points in the season, Tibbetts and Mercury players have laughed about the jokes Tibbetts tells in timeout huddles even in high-pressure late-game situations.
Although not without the occasional outburst, according to Tibbetts, he’s tried to remain calm and level-headed throughout the Mercury’s many challenges this season, a testament to the environments he worked in during his NBA coaching tenures.
“We’re gonna enjoy this. We get to compete and this is our, they call it a job, but we’re gonna have fun doing it,” Tibbetts told reporters. “… It’s something that I’ve taken from a lot of different coaches that I’ve been around. I was with Terry Stotts for eight years. He was a cool calm guy, and Jamal Mosley is about the most consistent person that I’ve ever been around in Orlando. And those guys were people that I spent a lot of time with and got to see them deal with wins and losses. And there’s a lot that comes at head coaches every day. And so showing your team that you’re willing to be consistent and not get too worked up in difficult situations, I think, is important.”
Heading into the back stretch of the season, the Mercury are sixth in the standings, sitting at just above .500 at 13-12. Tibbetts’s first season as a WNBA head coach hasn’t been without challenges and hasn’t necessarily gone to plan.
Throughout the ebb and flow of the season, Tibbetts has remained optimistic about the level of play he believes his team is capable of reaching. He’s also been open about this year being a learning experience for him and how much he’s learned from his players about the league. With 15 games remaining in the regular season, it remains to be seen if Tibbetts’s experience in the men’s game is enough to help take the Mercury back to the playoffs.
