NBA blew it by letting Natalie Nakase slip away and she just proved it

The NBA messed up. It let Natalie Nakase slip through its fingers.She spent 10 years working for the Clippers.

She wanted to be a head coach in the NBA.But the NBA wasn’t ready. Will it ever be? A woman has never been at the helm of an NBA team.The league has watched multiple talented female assistant coaches tire of not getting promoted and take their talents to the WNBA, including Nakase, Becky Hammon and Teresa Weatherspoon. The NBA’s loss is the WNBA’s gain.Nakase just led the Valkyries to the WNBA championship in the franchise’s second year, making them the fastest expansion franchise to win a title in major North American professional sports history. She took a team that had the worst field goal percentage in the league (42%) to Game 7 of the Finals by prioritizing defensive grit. She took a team without a superstar to the mountaintop by ensuring she had the league’s best bench. She took a bunch of players who felt overlooked and put them at the center of the basketball universe. The WNBA expansion draft in Dec.

2024 allowed teams to protect six players and the Valkyries didn’t sign any top free agents.They were expected to be in the cellar of the league. Look at them now. The Valkyries are an incredible story. And Nakase is at the center of it. “This is for all the people that have been underrated, misunderstood,” Nakase said during the trophy ceremony at Chase Center on Sunday after the Valkyries beat the Dream in Game 7 of the WNBA Finals, 68-63.

“This is for all y’all, because this is proof: if you put all your heart and all your soul, you f–king win championships!”She has been at the epicenter of that journey, with her serpentine path from underdog to hero being well-documented. The 5-foot-2 Nakase went from being a walk-on at UCLA to a starter for three years.She went from being an unpaid intern video coordinator with the Clippers in 2012 to an assistant coach with the team. And she went from being the first fe...