I remember my first in-person press conference as a credentialed WNBA media member when the Chicago Sky faced the Connecticut Sun in the 2021 WNBA Semifinals. Despite my professional past covering the NBA, NFL, and Major League Baseball, I felt a rush of anxiety that was foreign to me. Given the ample number of household names and international stars like Candace Parker, Emma Meesseman, and Kahleah Copper, it’s not hard to understand why. As the kids say, it just hit different covering a league I was infatuated with as a kid.
The jitters wore off with the help of battle-tested journalists and creatives like former Chicago Tribune columnist Shakeia Taylor, who’s now a key figure in The Athletic’s NBA coverage and the Indiana Pacers, too. If you asked her about her steady mentorship of young journalists in the field, she would say she’s just paying it forward in a fashion she wished was commonplace when she first got her start in the business. I tell her all the time how much that moment meant to me because she didn’t have to lend a helping hand to the newbie on press row.
There’s a running joke amongst WNBA media that you truly haven’t covered the league until longtime journalist Maggie Hendricks offers you some of her homemade cookies. Maggie has covered nearly everything under the women’s sports umbrella and outside. I can tell you that they are critically acclaimed by the masses who’ve had the pleasure of enjoying them. Her advice was rather simple. Athletes are normal people just like us, so talk to them as you would to anyone. That piece of advice stuck with me over the years, and it’s one of the first things I tell newcomers who find themselves in the spot I was back then.
After nearly five years, the makeup of media members has changed seemingly overnight for the worse. There is a plethora of good folks with great intentions in this space, but it is quite clear that the seismic wave of interest in women’s basketball has fielded a crop of opportunists who strive to cash in on its popularity. I’m not a fan of “gatekeeping the game”, but it does get to a point where you question the direction of coverage across the board. As is the case with most fields, the mighty few are drowned out by the insufferable many.
Not only has the business shape-shifted on press row, but also in the coaching ranks that speak to us. In my first full season on the Sky beat, there were only three Black women in head coaching jobs across a league where Black women represented well over 65 percent of it. As we look forward to the 2026 season amid active CBA negotiations, there won’t be a single one roaming the sidelines. You’ll never see more women as head coaches in the NBA, so why isn’t the same case for men in the WNBA?
As much as the masses may reject the notion, the WNBA has been treated as a stepping-stone league, from leadership and day-to-day operations down to referees. With only a handful of openings and opportunities in the NBA and the W exploding on the scene, that will be the status quo for the foreseeable future.
For example, current Aces coach Becky Hammon was a lead assistant for the San Antonio Spurs for seven seasons. She was the first woman ever to be hired as an assistant coach in a men’s league in North America. She was passed over for several spots in the NBA, and eventually departed for the league that made her a household name for years, and the rest is history. If one of the greatest point guards in basketball history didn’t get a fair shot, what does that mean for former players-turned-coaches like Lisa Leslie and Kristi Tolliver in the W, to name a few?
If it wasn’t clear, WNBA front offices are beginning to prioritize NBA-style coaching strategies and development. We’ve seen it as recently as the New York Liberty parting ways with former coach Sandy Brondello after delivering a title for the last original franchise that had yet to hoist one in nearly 30 years of existence. Whether you believe her dismissal would’ve occurred if the Liberty didn’t defeat the Minnesota Lynx in the Finals or not, her rash exit was mind-boggling, to say the least. She was replaced by 40-year-old Chris DeMarco, who spent the last decade and change on the Golden State Warriors bench as an assistant.
Breaking: New York Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello’s contract will not be renewed for the 2026 season, the team announced.
The organization will begin the search for its next head coach immediately. pic.twitter.com/F1cae7lHYv
— ESPN (@espn) September 23, 2025
DeMarco has also served as the head coach for the Bahamas’ men’s national team since 2019. Just in case you were wondering, his resume lacks any experience in women’s basketball. Yes, the sport is the same, but it’s not at the same time, and anyone passing this off as commonplace is mistaken. The basketball played on both sides couldn’t be farther apart in distance or similarity. At face value, DeMarco represents a growing wave of NBA lifers who view the W as a legitimate opportunity, due to the league’s exponential growth. Gone are the days of the W being viewed as the studious younger sibling. The W is now a testing ground for male coaches who never got a shot in the NBA. Again, this much is clear.
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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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