CHICAGO — New Chicago Sky coach Tyler Marsh’s main calling card is extensive experience learning from the best in the business.
Before landing the Chicago job, Marsh was best known as an integral part of two-time WNBA champion Becky Hammon’s team in Las Vegas. Before that, Marsh learned from two of the NBA’s most respected coaches: Philadelphia 76ers coach Nick Nurse and Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle.
And when both coaches traveled to Chicago last weekend to face the Bulls, they expressed confidence in Marsh’s ability to transform the Sky in his head coaching debut.
“Tyler has more rings than anyone sitting in this room right now, including me,” Nurse said jokingly, using his fingers to count Marsh’s four championship titles — one in the D-League, one in the NBA and two in the NBA. WNBA. “He has almost a handful.”
Nurse hired Marsh for his first job out of college with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers in the D-League (now known as the G League). Marsh was an all-access player development coach, responsible for answering his phone at any time of the day or night to transport a player to the practice facility and spending hours in the gym working on handles and bouncing shots.
The Vipers won the D-League title that year, a victory that immediately landed Nurse an assistant role with the Toronto Raptors. They spent the next five years apart – Marsh working in assistant roles throughout the D-League, Nurse working his way up to the front bench – until Nurse took over the Raptors as head coach in 2018. He immediately hired Marsh to his staff, and the pair won another ring.
During those three years together, Nurse grew accustomed to one constant: the presence of Marsh’s father, Donnie, a longtime college coach. Donnie Marsh accompanied them whenever he could, sitting in a row of empty bleachers, pen in hand, taking notes during training camp practices and off-day practices. The nurse quickly realized that this was a common trait in the Marsh family: a thirst for learning combined with intense attention to detail.
Carlisle echoed this praise. But something else dawned on him when he first met Tyler Marsh, who was a Pacers assistant for a year when Carlisle took over in 2021. Coaches rarely retain old-guard assistants, but Marsh was clearly an exception. Carlisle saw Marsh’s potential as a coach, but he also appreciated Marsh’s ability to attract attention despite his reserve.
“He’s a man of few words, but when he speaks, people listen,” Carlisle said. “He gains respect very quickly.”
Marsh wants to be his own man in Chicago. But he also hopes to take inspiration from his mentors – emulating Hammon’s communication, Carlisle’s clever play patterns and Nurse’s fearlessness.
The nurse couldn’t help but laugh at the praise. He knew exactly what Marsh meant by “fearlessness.” Sometimes it looked brave. Sometimes it seemed downright crazy — like in Game 2 of the 2019 NBA Finals, when Nurse and his coaching staff (Marsh included) decided to throw a box and one to Steph Curry.
A box-and-one defense is an unconventional tactic that uses a four-man zone with one player guarding the opponent’s offensive star man-to-man. In this case, it was Curry, who the Raptors desperately needed to slow down in the fourth quarter of Game 2.
The Raptors had never used this defense before. In fact, it’s unclear if any team has ever used a box-and-one in the final before this point. Selling the concept quickly was as important as the project itself, but Nurse knew how to thread the needle. He presented the idea to Kyle Lowry, the heart of the locker room, who then presented the project to his teammates and urged them to buy in.
It didn’t work. The Warriors won game two. But the Raptors won the franchise’s first NBA championship in six games — a result that Nurse attributes to his team’s willingness to take risks and make mistakes. And Nurse hopes Marsh carries that trait into his tenure with Sky.
“I hope he gets some,” Nurse said. “Most of that comes – for me – out of necessity. You just look over there and say, “We have no choice but to try this now.” » And you go for it. Part of it works. Some don’t. You don’t need to be afraid to try something a little different, try things on the fly, and throw things into the game that your team has never tried before if you can convince to join.
Marsh is the latest in a string of longtime NBA assistant coaches who have ascended to the WNBA head coaching job, following the path of Hammon and Nate Tibbetts of the Phoenix Mercury.
This trend makes sense to Nurse, who believes no experience is better than head coaching at any level. For Nurse, WNBA head coaching positions have moved into the “high-level” echelon of coaching acumen, making it an ultimate goal for assistants moving up the ranks, regardless of gender .
Carlisle agreed. He was swept up in the excitement of the Fever over the summer, but he was already closely following the Aces and the New York Liberty.
One separating factor between the two leagues will always be the same: money. The median salary for an NBA head coach is $7 million per year. Only two WNBA coaches – notably Tibbetts and Hammon – make more than $1 million per year. Many NBA assistant head jobs pay better than WNBA head coaching positions. And that salary gap will continue to define the WNBA’s ability to attract top NBA assistants.
But basketball isn’t the problem. And as revenues continue to skyrocket in the WNBA, Nurse and Carlisle believe coaching trees will continue to overlap more frequently between leagues.
“There are differences between the WNBA game and the NBA game, but it’s very fascinating to watch,” Carlisle said. “The coaching is of a very high level. To me, WNBA executive positions would be positions that would be coveted by everyone.
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