Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase named assistant for Staff USA
Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase will probably be an assistant coach with Staff USA’s girls’s basketball group throughout an upcoming FIBA Girls’s World Cup Qualifying Event in Puerto Rico, per the group. It is not uncommon for Staff USA to ship alternate gamers and coaches to qualifying tournaments in an effort to solidify depth. It will likely be the primary time Nakase will probably be on Staff USA’s workers for a match. She was part of the group’s coaching camp late final 12 months.
Nakase’s star has risen shortly within the teaching ranks. The Anaheim native is coming off profitable the WNBA’s Coach of the Yr Award in her first season as head coach for the Valkyries. She led the growth group to a 23-21 document and a spot within the WNBA playoffs.
Whereas Nakase didn’t grow to be a family teaching identify till final season, she had already constructed a powerful resume. In 2012, she turned the primary lady to be a head coach in Japan’s high males’s basketball league. Following the season, she returned to the USA to affix the Los Angeles Clippers group. She steadily climbed the franchise’s participant improvement ranks over the subsequent 9 years earlier than changing into a high assistant with the Las Vegas Aces, the place she gained a WNBA title.
