The 2025 WNBA season saw no shortage of head coaches pilot their teams to historic campaigns.
In his first year with the Atlanta Dream, Karl Smesko led his squad to a franchise-record 30 wins and the third seed in the playoffs. A slew of Dream players are having career years under his leadership, like MVP candidate Allisha Gray, who is in a system that maximizes her efforts on both sides of the floor. Naz Hillmon is the leading candidate for Sixth Player of the Year after reinventing her play style.
Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve is a top pick in the Coach of the Year debate annually. She won the award in 2024 after guiding the Lynx to a franchise-record 30 wins, only to upstage it this season with 34 and the first overall seed in the playoffs. Alanna Smith took home the Defensive Player of the Year Award, sharing honors with Aces superstar A’ja Wilson, which is the first instance in league history. Lynx linchpin and MVP candidate Napheesa Collier took a step further to cement her placement as a top player in the world after recording the second 50-40-90 season in WNBA history. For the sake of comparison, only seven NBA players have achieved this feat in the league’s 77-year history.
As talented and crowded as the race was for Coach of the Year, it is virtually impossible to see another candidate boasting the accomplishments of Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase. I do not have an official ballot, but if I did, the former Aces assistant-turned-rookie head coach would have my vote.
In her first season leading an expansion franchise, Nakase and her staff coached the Valkyries to a WNBA record 23 wins in an inaugural season and a playoff berth as the eighth seed. No expansion team has done this. On Sept.17, the WNBA announced that Nakase won the 2025 WNBA Coach of the Year award, receiving 53 of 72 total votes from a national panel of journalists and broadcasters.
The success experienced in the Bay was immediate, as Golden State kicked off the season with a plus-500 record (10-9), becoming just the third expansion team in league history to collect its 10th win in fewer than 20 games. The team emulated the fiery, dynamic personality of its coach, especially on the defensive end. The Valkyries allowed the fewest overall points (76.3) and owned the third-best defensive rating in the regular season. After losing All-Star forward Kayla Thornton to a season-ending knee injury, the public court of opinion ruled that Golden State would slip in the rankings and fall out of sight.
That could not have been farther from the truth, as Nakase’s team persevered and made the playoffs. Starting point guard Veronica Burton, who was announced as the 2025 WNBA Most Improved Player on Tuesday, helped lead the team on and off the court to get to where it did with an appearance in the playoffs before hard-fought efforts in Game 2 against the Lynx were unsuccessful.
However, before the game took place, controversy found the league in a spot where it could not have been needed less.
Before Golden State’s home playoff game against the Lynx at SAP Center in San Jose, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert was on site to present Nakase with the award, which went viral online. In a video posted on X by Golden State Warriors reporter Joseph Dycus, Engelbert mispronounced Nakase’s last name, which is problematic for many reasons.
An awkward moment during the press conference. WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert mispronounces Natalie Nakase’s last name during her speech. pic.twitter.com/cUxlQzZ8Ba
— Joseph Dycus (@joseph_dycus) September 18, 2025
First off, not only is Nakase the first Japanese-American head coach in WNBA history, but she is the first in professional basketball in North America. For the league’s commissioner to mispronounce Nakase’s name on one of the biggest stages of her career is a grave microaggression that will be hard to forget.
Secondly, the Valkyries sold out every home game at Chase Center, and Nakase was a leading candidate for Coach of the Year from the very beginning. To mispronounce the name of a coach who has been talked about for months is inexcusable.
Then again, this is not the first time that Engelbert was caught on camera, rendering a sense of carelessness regarding race that should not exist as the leader of a league where over 70% of its players identify as Black women and was put on the main stage by Black women.
In my time in and around sports as a professional, never have I experienced a phenomenon between two players like All-Stars Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark create such a racist, revolting presence that overshadows the basketball played on the court nearly every time the two players share it. Through a hate campaign in real life and on social media that has targeted Reese since her time at LSU, a one-sided stan war has engulfed her career since, and has only worsened in the WNBA.
In early September last year, Engelbert was featured in a slot on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” and was asked by anchor Tyler Mathisen to expound on this behavior that has taken center stage in such a short time, especially on social media that has “taken a darker turn, a more menacing turn, where race has been introduced into the conversation, where sexuality is sometimes introduced into the conversation.”
When given the perfect opportunity to condemn racism and the hate speech it generates, Engelbert did the exact opposite, whiffing on a perfectly mailed fastball down the middle of the plate. She did happen to champion that there’s “no more apathy” in the WNBA.
“But the one thing I know about sports is you need rivalry,” she told CNBC. “That’s what makes people watch. They want to watch games of consequence between rivals. They don’t want everybody being nice to one another.”
WNBA Commissioner, Cathy Engelbert on the toxicity that’s spawned from the Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese rivalry. Seems to me the WNBA media who keeps chastising the fans, is running counter to what the commissioner wants. Let me know what you think. #WNBA #feverrising
Full… pic.twitter.com/N67HN0n6Vn
— Ken Swift (@kenswift) September 9, 2024
Keep in mind the question at hand was about the raging, insidious behavior in the name of fandom that has been viewed by millions around the world, and Engelbert said fans “don’t want everybody being nice to each other.”
As expected, Engelbert’s response drew significant ire from all avenues in the league. New York Liberty All-Star and WNBPA vice president Breanna Stewart, who was not a fan in the slightest, called her words “kind of disappointing to hear.”
“We want our sport to be inclusive for race, gender, and really a place where people can be themselves,” Stewart said.
“So we wish, obviously, Cathy would [have used her] platform in a different way.”
Engelbert’s comment caught the attention of Terri Jackson, the executive director of the WNBPA, who accused her of recklessly treating online abuse as a portion of “ a business model.”
“There is absolutely no place in sport — or in life — for the vile hate, racist language, homophobic comments and misogynistic attacks our players are facing on social media,” Jackson said in a statement issued by the union.
Jackson expounded on the situation when speaking to ESPN:
“We find it unacceptable to encourage the players to market this league and to engage and/or post on social media to promote this league and then leave the players unprotected in the manner in which they have,” Jackson said. “We expected the league to recognize the negative impact it was having on the players as well as its business and to have proactively addressed this situation earlier in the season. Maybe you cannot control what is said or posted on social media, but you can send a message that demonstrates that you are paying attention, that states that racism, bias, hate are unacceptable and not welcomed, that shows that you stand in solidarity with the players.”
In a letter sent by Engelbert to the players that was obtained by ESPN’s Michael Voepel, Engelbert expressed remorse for not providing a more thoughtful answer to the questions:
“I was asked a question about WNBA rivalries and the dark side of social media and race, and simply put, my answer missed the mark and I’m sorry. I regret that I didn’t express, in a clear and definitive way, condemnation of the hateful speech that is all too often directed at WNBA players on social media. … I should have stated directly and unequivocally that hate speech is harmful. This is a teachable moment and one I embrace with humility. There is absolutely no room for racism, misogyny, homophobia, and other forms of hate in the WNBA or anywhere. I know many of you have been dealing with it for a long time. I want us as a league to do our part to change the too often toxic and abusive nature of social media discourse.”
It is unclear when Engelbert sent the email, but her public statement posted on X at 10:36 P.M. was hours after the clip went viral online and lacked any remorse, which was evident to the masses who were directly offended. Once again, this is nothing new for the WNBA as a league or Engelbert as commissioner. Optics in 2025 are everything, and the ones provided throughout the Connecticut Sun sale ordeal only complicate matters.
Last month, news broke that a group led by Steve Pagliuca, a minority owner of the NBA’s Boston Celtics, agreed to purchase the Sun for $325 million, with a commitment of $100 million towards a practice facility. As several reports put it, this would have been a record-breaking sales price for a women’s sports franchise.
The Mohegan Tribe initially purchased the Sun in 2003, when it was the Orlando Miracle, and relocated it to Uncasville, making them the first non-NBA owners of a WNBA team.
Essentially, the Mohegan Tribe got in on the WNBA before it was the popular thing to do as far as investment. It took a team that no NBA owner wanted on their books and made it their own in a community that has treasured the team for over two decades.
After the report dropped, Sun president Jennifer Rizzotti confirmed that the team would play home games at Mohegan Sun Arena in 2026, with plans to relocate to Boston for the 2027 season. Rizzotti also reiterated that the sale by the Mohegan Tribe is “not quite at the finish line yet.” The sale and potential relocation to Boston are subject to approval by the WNBA Board of Governors.
This is where it gets interesting for a few reasons. In the wake of the report, the league issued a statement highlighting that “relocation decisions are made by the WNBA Board of Governors and not by individual teams,” and that other cities that have already gone through the expansion process have priority over Boston, which failed to submit an expansion bid in any of the three recent expansion rounds over the past three years.
According to ESPN, possible proposals sent to the league included a full sale of the team to Pagliuca’s group, a sale to a group by former Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry, who already has plans to move the team to the capital city of Connecticut in Hartford. Selling a minority stake or allowing the league to purchase the Sun for the same price as Pagliuca at $325 million and relocate it.
What is most shocking is that ESPN reported that the tribe did not appreciate the fashion in which the process was playing out and that the league presented a one-way option: moving the team to a market of its own desire. They went on to say that the league offered to purchase the Sun for $250 million, which is a $75 million reduction by not charging an additional relocation fee. Apparently, that offer was presented before Pagliuca’s offer of $325 million.
Sources told ESPN that the Sun chose to explore investment options last season with the intention to assess opportunities for a limited partnership sale for an infrastructure build, while keeping open the chance of a full sale.
After the tribe informed the league of its plans, the WNBA requested that the tribe allow the Cleveland Cavaliers ownership group to submit a bid before jump-starting its sale exploration process because Cleveland was considered one of the strongest expansion candidates and could facilitate a relocation on a quick turnaround.
Eventually, Lasry’s group matched Pagliuca’s bid of $325 million, but sources told ESPN that the league has also told the Sun it would not approve a move to Hartford, which is 45 miles away from Uncasville and within the team’s territory.
What I gathered from this ordeal at face value was that in the year of our Lord 2025, the WNBA is attempting to push out a Native American ownership group that has stuck with the league when most did not. I do not need to tell you how horrid the optics look with the current trend we see daily in this country.
When I took a step back to see this in its entirety for what it is, I laid eyes on a league attempting to tell a Native American-owned sports franchise who it can sell its own product to and for how much. It goes deeper when you realize the WNBA is attempting to put a professional women’s sports team in the hands of the Houston Rockets owner Tillman Fertitta, who just so happens to be the United States ambassador to Italy and San Marino in the Trump administration; an organization that stands for everything that the WNBA does not, on and off the court.
This would not be the first time there was a morally questionable figure in team ownership ranks. Former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a Republican, sold her share of the Atlanta Dream to current owners Larry Gottesdiener, chairman of the Northland Investment Corp, the company’s COO, and former player Renee Montgomery in 2021.
This was only after public pressure from players on the team, fans around the Atlanta metropolitan area, and basketball fans worldwide forced Loeffler to sell her share due to racial insensitivity when she chastised the WNBA for openly embracing activism that affects Black Americans. Loeffler faced scrutiny from all directions in part because of a letter she wrote that was published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that warned the WNBA that “to subscribe to a particular political agenda undermines the potential of the sport and sends a message of exclusion.”
The WNBA is a league that has been heralded for its progressivism and headstrong ability to combat tough situations with sound logic. This is because players and fans unite for what they believe in when it matters most, in spite of inept leadership at the very top of the league and across it. In the last two years alone, Engelbert has shown time and time again that she is not in line with her workforce or a healthy majority of its fans, which makes it all possible.
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Born and raised in Chicago, Christan Braswell is a women’s sports journalist with a focus on the WNBA and women’s college basketball. He’s an avid fan of elevator screens and stuffed-crust pizza. Outside of sports, he’s an avid cook and lover of the great outdoors.
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