Aces coach brings Wright stuff to bench

LAS VEGAS -- Las Vegas Aces coach Bill Laimbeer has never been one to mince words, especially to his players.

Having a great game, producing a double-double, and leading the team to a double-digit win - it doesn't matter. 

He'll find something to be critical of afterward. It's his way of bringing the best out of his players.

Nobody on the Aces understands that better than first-year assistant coach Tanisha Wright.

After playing in the WNBA for 14 years and spending three seasons as an assistant coach with the Charlotte 49ers, Wright joined Laimbeer's staff with first-hand knowledge of how the former Bad Boy's mind works after playing for him in New York from 2015-17.

Her arrival has been a hit.

"Tanisha has been a perfect fit," Aces guard Lindsay Allen said. "She complements Bill very well. I think she's a great communicator and I think playing for Bill for so many years in New York, I think she knows exactly what he wants and she can also give him some crap from time to time when he'll say something out of line."

Not that far removed from her playing days, Allen said it's helped Wright knows the league well and is knowledgeable of many of the players she's played with and against.

"She's been perfect for us," Allen said."

Wright said the most satisfying thing for her has been building one-on-one relationships with the Aces, earning their trust and helping them evolve with a confidence level that has translated into a killer instinct the team may have lacked its first two years in Las Vegas.

This year, the Aces earned the No. 1 seed after the regular season, were one of the favorites to win the league title, and are currently sitting 0-1 in the WNBA Finals against Seattle.

"Tanisha helps us because she's not that far removed as a player, so her passion from a player's perspective is still there," said league MVP A'ja Wilson. "She really puts it in a way that we understand and it just helps us get through different moments because she's probably been in those moments, so her instincts and her passion really just rubs off on us."

The fact she is so closely removed from her playing days adds to her credibility with the Aces..

Aces veteran Kayla McBride said she's appreciated not only the endless wisdom Wright brings to the bench, but the same type of honesty the Aces have become used to from Laimbeer.

"Coming in from being a player just last year and being in this league for so long ... just seeing the game in a lot of different ways, I think her perspective has helped me a lot," McBride said. "She always says the right things. Understanding the game at a player's level, that's what she brings."

The seven-time all-defensive team honoree has remained a student of the game. Like in 2017, when she missed the season due to injury but sat in on coaching meetings, soaking up as much knowledge as she possibly could.

Wright - who also played for Katie Smith (2019), Cheryl Reeve (2018), Brian Agler (2008-14) and Anne Donovan (2005-07), four of whom rank among the eight winningest coaches in league history (Agler, 2nd; Laimbeer, 4th; Reeve, 5th; and, Donovan, 8th) - said in her latter years playing for Laimbeer, she was able to establish the role of being an extension of the coaching staff onto her teammates, and her latest role is simply an extension of the things she's already been doing.

Laimbeer said he is confident Wright will get an opportunity to become - and will be - an outstanding head coach long before she puts in the customary "8, 10, 12 years" other assistants might have to because of the path she's taken.

"She understands how to demand players," Laimbeer said. "The most important thing for a head coach, especially a former player - two things - one, she has to command respect of the players and she does that. The second is she in their time slot, she's experienced playing with some of the players."

Although she has plenty of time, she aspires to become a head coach one day. For now, however, she wants to take advantage of what she is calling "an amazing opportunity to learn and to continue to grow" under Laimbeer's wing, but not just coaching experience, but his overall experience in the league, which includes his role as a general manager. 

"It's just a plethora of things that he has experience," said Wright, a starter for Seattle on the 2010 WNBA championship team. "I'm definitely learning from one of the best. So I'm relishing in that, I'm soaking up everything and anything that I can, all the tidbits, to continue to grow myself. And not just my basketball IQ, but my all-around knowledge of our league and this game."

If there is one thing this odd season in Bradenton, Florida has taught her - amidst the coronavirus, civil unrest and a unified stand against police brutality and toward racial equality - is that sports most certainly have a place in life

"It's unifying," Wright said. "It's a place where you can use it as a vehicle. You can use it as a tool. And I think athletes have done a tremendous job. I praise our league for the amount of attention and the ability to stand their ground, and fight for what they believe in. I think that sports give you a unique ability to be able to do all those things to cross-section different parts of your life. Sports has done that; that's what I'm learning right now.

"We have a responsibility too, as athletes, to use the God-given talents that we were given, to use that to try to effect change. I think that our women, the NBA, and other athletes across the country have really banded together to really show our strength, that there's strength in numbers. We have more power than what we think."

And that power has translated into a fight not only for the "Say Her Name" concept Aces veteran Angel McCoughtry helped initiate at the beginning of the season, but a battle WNBA players and coaches feel they need to endure for themselves.

"The problem is when we're seen, we're seen as 'you're WNBA,'" Wright explained. "But in everyday life people who don't know WNBA, we're not. We're just seen as people. We're a part of this big conglomerate of people that are being oppressed. We have different influences and reaches, but in our own we get these same treatments. We're not just fighting for them, we're fighting for ourselves. When you're fighting for yourselves, you're scratching, you're clawing, you're trying to do whatever you can to make sure that you're not just surviving. That you're treated in a way that you can enjoy and have equality and a good life just like everybody else.

"I think the most important thing, whether it's us or whoever it is, is that the message is being sent, the message is being delivered, the message is being received. We have to continue to fight until the message is whole-heartedly received."