They sure rushed through that. Put me in the "just say no" to Kate Smith camp. All she did was take a team that won 22 games to only 7 wins in one season, and managed to cut Mercedes Russell, and sign a completely finished Marissa Coleman, among other things. Her second season was 10-24, whereupon she got canned. Surely she can't be getting hired on the strength of her being an assistant with the Lottery Lynx.
As for Sides - I'm not sure she is the best option either, but she has been an assistant for a while with various teams including the Fever when Pokey was HC. Seems like more of a lifetime assistant (like Stanley) but at least she doesn't have a record of failure and misjudgements.
@womensbball247 is an awful source in my experience and i have them muted on twitter because of it.
I enjoy the content Megdal puts out at The Next. He actually gets into the nuts and bolts of the game rather than rely on the "rah rah rah let's go girls" type content recycled by too many other outlets. That said, I didn't realize he had falsely reported Ionescu was leaving early back in the day. I didn't follow WBB quite as closely back then outside of my own team(s). That does hamper his credibility a bit.
Post by lynxmania on Sept 29, 2022 16:04:04 GMT -5
I mean I get the anti-Smith talks but when you push her down to the Lottery Lynx only, as if she wasn’t part of 2 Top 4 finishes too. Also putting the GM decisions on her for the Liberty too doesn’t seem fair. But yes her Liberty days were awful.
That said, I’m not sure she’s the hire for them. But also if those are the names leaking, then clearly they aren’t getting good options.
formerly pickdiamondmillerchallenge lol formerly dmillerturnprochallenge ha formerly bostonturnprochallenge lol
It's a tough gig. The money isn't as good as college, the prestige is less and the job security is limited.
But then again, you don't spend all summer flying from one spot to another and sitting in the bleachers while baby-sitting a recruit you may not get. Last night, we had a coach from Northern Arizona there to show the flag for one of our players. He took off from AZ at noon, drove out to our gym from 7-9 and then had a 5 a.m. flight back this morning.
All that depends on the college. The W has more prestige than 90% of coaching jobs and probably pays better too. I doubt the Northern Arizona coach you saw makes as much as a WNBA assistant and surely doesn't have the prestige.
All that depends on the college. The W has more prestige than 90% of coaching jobs and probably pays better too. I doubt the Northern Arizona coach you saw makes as much as a WNBA assistant and surely doesn't have the prestige.
You are right about that. Georgia has a web page where the salary of all state employees can be found. The HC for UGA and tech made around 600K, Kennesaw State (2nd in enrollment to only UGA) was paying HC Octavia Blue (a former WNBA player) a small fraction of that. GA Tech is 4th in enrollment but pays the HC a whole lot more. Probably what some of the smaller schools pay is downright embarrassing.
Women's coaches generally must get somewhat close to what the men's coaches at the same school get.
I don't know what an assistant's salary is in the WNBA, but it's a four-month job, so I find it hard to imagine it's very much.
But the main point, for me, is the competition for top-shelf coaches, and so the comparison to Kennesaw State doesn't mean much. The coaches the Fever might consider are P5 coaches, who make $200,000+. And the prestige of coaching UCLA, say, is to my mind a lot greater than coaching the Indiana Fever, who play to "crowds" of 1,500.
Nel Fornter makes a little over 600k coaching Georgia Tech - hardly a power house. Joni Taylor made just a little less coaching UGA and found better job (that likely pays even more.) Becky Hammon aside - do WNBA coaches really make that much?
Yes, WNBA teams draw better on average, but fans in the seats aren't nearly as important as money in the bank account -- and job security.
Look at it this way: How many people know who won the NCAA title? How many know who won the WNBA title? I grant you the margin is smaller than it used to be, but still ...
ESPN said that the NCAAW final game drew almost 5 million viewers. The WNBA finals had something around 10% of that number. Even the best playoff game (Storm v Aces Sep. 11 on ABC) had peak viewership of 1.1 million and only averaged 852k. Seems like the college games for the best schools at least has fan interest and likely more prestige for that reason.