What’s Causing the WNBA Coaches Firefight? 7 franchises are hiring

In the coming weeks, the WNBA general managers and head coaches will gather at their annual fall league meeting to discuss the 2024 season and discuss potential changes for the coming year. At previous meetings there were enough coaches present to theoretically play a game of five-a-side. This year there will hardly be enough to play three-on-three.

Nearly 60 percent of last season’s WNBA head coaches lost their jobs this season, making this a busy and historic fall. The seven changes are the most for a single cycle in the league’s 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-breaking rookie season. White was a year removed from winning Coach of the Year and just four quarters removed from a berth in the WNBA Finals. Just 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 line between them, pointing to the higher stakes at stake as the league grows at a record pace.

“You would never see this overall volume without the changing WNBA,” said one current general manager, who was granted anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak on league matters. “The amount we have now is partly because all eyes are on the W. owners who didn’t care before.”

The WNBA is in an unprecedented period of growth. It’s part of the sports cultural consciousness like never before, as it comes from the most-watched finals in 25 years, the most-watched regular season on ESPN and ratings at the All-Star Game and draft. A new landmark media rights deal worth more than $2 billion will come into effect in 2026. The value of the expansion franchise is significantly higher than it was even 18 months ago, as the next generation of stars like Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins emerge.

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Some suggest that boom is having an impact on the stability of coaching.

“When an owner’s thumb is on the scale, the first thing to go is the coach,” said Fred Williams, a former WNBA head coach, speaking about the current coaching climate.

The shootout marks a notable change in the WNBA. But the reality is that this makes the WNBA comparable to almost any other sports league.

Some owners have looked at their franchises and presumably sought change. And who did they consider expendable?

“The most volatile place for that when people want change is the head coach, in all professional sports,” the general manager said.

The unfortunate reality for head coaches across sports is that wins don’t always translate into stability. In recent NBA history, coaches have been fired after winning Coach of the Year (Dwane Casey), within a year of reaching the conference finals (Darvin Ham), and two years after winning the Larry O’Brien Trophy ( Mike Budenholzer). Yet the NBA and G League have become minefields for WNBA replacements; Aces coach Becky Hammon and Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts notably left NBA assistant positions for lead roles in the WNBA.

For WNBA coaches, the league is no longer an oasis where continued success will lead to job security.

“Are we in unprecedented times? Are we in this space where people want to benefit, and they feel like they need something different? said Cheryl Reeve, Minnesota Lynx coach and president of basketball operations. “That could be kind of… the energy that you see in these executives making these decisions.”

Some changes may not be unjustified. League sources suggested some franchises are trying to get an edge on the WNBA’s largest free agency to date in 2026 by building a strong foundation this offseason. (Only two players not on rookie-scale contracts have signed contracts beyond that year.)

The wave of coaching changes has lasted more than a month. Some teams that missed the playoffs (Dallas and Washington) waited more than four weeks between the end of their season and the announcement of their moves. Their coaches were in exit meetings. It begs the question: Does each team have a clear plan for the next step?

Let’s answer that question again: who are these teams going to hire?

While there is prestige in being one of only 12 – 13, next spring – WNBA head coaches, compensation for WNBA coaches varies widely. The rate entering this offseason was about $350,000 to just over $1 million per year, 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 on the job for two seasons or less.

Furthermore, coaches have seen their power within organizations decrease in recent seasons. Not long ago, another shift occurred in the coaching ranks: WNBA franchises began moving away from the dual roles of coach and general manager.

Reeve, the longest-tenured coach in the league, has final personnel decision-making, but she is the only active coach to hold both positions. The move to split the responsibilities of the general manager and coach 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 too important for one person. But that change also led to more responsibility on the part of the coach (or at least made a coach more vulnerable, depending on one’s perspective). What coach would willingly fire himself from both roles?

This is not the WNBA of the past, where, as one general manager put it, “you can just be a good person and survive for five to 10 years.”

It’s not even ‘survival of the most successful’ anymore.

It’s a new era in more ways than one. What is happening is a historical anomaly in the WNBA. But it is not everywhere in the modern sports landscape. For coaches looking for stability, the WNBA is no longer a haven.

– The athletics‘s Sabreena Merchant contributed to this report.

(Photos by Teresa Weatherspoon and Christie Sides: Patrick McDermott/Getty Images, Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)