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. 

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 female assistant coach to sit on an NBA team’s bench during Summer League in 2014 to the first Asian-American head coach to win a WNBA championship. 

She has always shattered glass ceilings. 

Back when she was with the Clippers, her work ethic was notable. 

As an assistant with the Agua Caliente Clippers before being promoted to a Clippers assistant coach in 2018, she’d often watch five games a day until 3 am, sleeping an average of four hours a night. 

It was obvious she was going to special. 

The players saw it. 

Coaches saw it too, including Tyronn Lue, whom Nakase worked under as an assistant and player development coach for the Clippers and their G League affiliate until she joined the Las Vegas Aces in 2022. 

“She asked me if I have any tips going into the Finals,” Lue recently told reporters. “I said, ‘You don’t need my advice. You’re way better than me. You’re doing a better job than I am. So you got it. You’ve done a great job.’ I’m very happy for her.”

It all begs the same question,,,why wasn’t she given a chance in the NBA? 

Why hasn’t any woman been given a chance?

Nakase proved herself as an assistant NBA coach. Hammon and Weatherspoon proved themselves as WNBA players and assistant NBA coaches. 

Heck, many NBA coaches have been hired without any prior coaching experience, including JJ Redick who spent 15 seasons in the NBA as a player before the Lakers took a giant leap of faith on him in June 2024. 

He has since led the Lakers to back-to-back 50-win seasons for the first time in franchise history since Phil Jackson did so four years in a row from 2009-2011. 

The point is NBA teams are willing to take gambles on promising men. 

Why not on talented women?

Nakase just showed everyone that it’s time for that to change. 

She’s a champion. 

And anyone who didn’t fully believe in her missed the boat.