Tyler Marsh took a protracted highway to get right here — however he’s lastly a head coach, having been named the brand new coach of the Chicago Sky final week. Marsh, a former Las Vegas Aces assistant, will look to raise a younger, promising Sky core headlined by Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso, develop his younger prospects, and finally work towards playoff competition.
Reese is contemporary off an excellent rookie season that included quite a few rebounding information. Her remaining averages for the 2024 season — 13.1 rebounds and 5.1 offensive rebounds per sport — are the very best by any participant in WNBA historical past. However, in her first skilled season, she struggled offensively, capturing simply 39.1% from the sphere. It’s an space she’s definitely poised to enhance in, and given Tyler Marsh’s participant improvement background, she simply may need the fitting instruments in her disposal.
Marsh has but to have a proper press convention with media since being named head coach, however will achieve this on November twelfth.
For now, right here’s what we all know in regards to the 36-year-old who’s been concerned with teaching for over a decade now — and the way he may slot in with the Chicago Sky.
How did Tyler Marsh find yourself in Chicago?
Tyler Marsh has a complete and long-winded teaching background. He’s most not too long ago recognized for this work with the Las Vegas Aces, however that’s not the place his teaching journey started. He’s coached males’s faculty basketball, within the G-League, and within the NBA previous to becoming a member of Becky Hammon’s workers in Las Vegas.
Marsh started his teaching profession within the NBA D League (now rebranded because the G-League), the place he was concerned with quite a lot of franchises from 2012 to 2017, starting with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers in 2013. For the final half-decade, he’s specialised in participant improvement, making him a very shrewd choose for such a younger roster.
He grew to become a participant improvement coach on the Toronto Raptors, after they gained the championship in 2019 below Nick Nurse, and spent two seasons in participant improvement with the Indiana Pacers, from 2020 to 2022.
Marsh made his transition to the WNBA in 2022, main the participant improvement efforts of Las Vegas Aces from 2022 to 2024. He helped lead the Aces to back-to-back championships in 2022 and 2023, and is most well-known for serving to elevate the sport of Jackie Younger, one of many Aces’ Olympic guards, who went from being a comparatively inconsistent shooter to a knockdown menace.
“Really modified my profession,” Younger wrote on X shortly after Marsh’s hiring was introduced.
Marsh thanked the Aces in his first official feedback after being introduced as Chicago’s new head coach.
“Thanks to Coach Hammon, our workers and the entire Aces’ gamers for permitting me to make historical past with you as we introduced the town of Las Vegas back-to-back championships,” he mentioned. “I really like you all and wouldn’t be on this place with out you.”
Hammon, who employed Marsh from the Pacers, has lengthy been one in every of his vocal believers.
“I’ve a whole lot of confidence in Tyler,” Hammon advised Fieldhouse Recordsdata in 2023. “I’m actually joyful that he needed to come back and be part of my workers. However don’t confuse his quietness for being intimidated or no matter. He’s like power and calm in a storm, he’s bought a whole lot of it issue to him.”
“When it’s his flip, he’s gonna be incredible. Belief me, he’s one of many good ones.”
Sky management equally expressed their pleasure with the promising rent.
“Coach Marsh is broadly revered for the event of elite gamers and shares our objective of being a playoff and championship contender yearly,” the Sky mentioned in an announcement on Saturday night time.
Provided that Chicago struggled immensely from past the arc — they had been final in three-pointers made per sport — having a coach with a confirmed participant improvement background run the present may show extremely impactful.
Marsh can be former participant himself; he performed faculty basketball, first at Alabama Birmingham from 2006 to 2008 after which in Birmingham-Southern from 2008 to 2010. His father, at the moment an assistant coach for the boys’s basketball staff at Detroit-Mercy, has additionally been teaching basketball for many years.
How can Tyler Marsh obtain success in Chicago?
Marsh has a tricky highway forward in serving to to rebuild the Chicago Sky, who had been 18-22 final season and simply missed the playoffs. He’ll be the franchise’s fourth coach within the final yr alone, an unbelievable statistic that’s change into more and more consultant of the league’s fast-changing panorama. Then-head coach James Wade departed Chicago in the midst of the 2023 season in favor of an assistant coach place with the Toronto Raptors, and his assistant on the time, Emre Vatansever, took over for the rest of the yr.
Vatansever wasn’t saved on for lengthy, because the Sky employed Teresa Weatherspoon in October. Weatherspoon, regardless of forming a detailed relationship with Reese and breakout guard Chennedy Carter, solely lasted a yr with the group earlier than being let go, a lot to the shock of a lot of the basketball world.
Marsh will prioritize the event of the Sky’s younger gamers, headlined by final yr’s draft picks Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso, whereas transferring the franchise again towards playoff — and finally, championship — competition. Working with Reese specifically as a finisher across the basket, and with the Sky’s younger guards as shooters, Marsh has the potential to vastly enhance the staff’s offense.
It’s very early, however he appears to be heading in the right direction so far as incomes the buy-in of his younger athletes; he reportedly spoke to Angel Reese shortly after accepting the place, and she or he turned to Twitter to precise her approval within the hiring with a easy message.
He has technically been a WNBA head coach earlier than — for one sport, to be precise — when Aces head coach Becky Hammon was serving out a suspension final season.
“Tyler’s been ready for this second,” mentioned A’ja Wilson forward of Marsh’s first sport as head coach final season. “He’s able to shine and we belief him in that truth. We’re going to go on the market and be us.”
Kelsey Plum echoed that sentiment: “I don’t assume you guys get to see the work he does with us each day, however he’s positively the person for the job.”
Now, he’ll need to earn the respect and belief of a brand new crop of gamers as he takes over a franchise that has struggled since profitable the WNBA championship in 2021.
Sky management hopes he will help faucet into the younger core’s potential.
“I’m trying ahead to constructing relationships with our gamers and all through our total group as we work in the direction of establishing a championship tradition on and off the courtroom,” Marsh mentioned.
