basic calling card New Chicago Sky Coach Tyler Marsh It’s an in-depth experience learning from the best in the industry.
Before her time in Chicago, Marsh was best known for playing a key role on Becky Hammon’s two-time WNBA champion staff in Las Vegas. Before that, Marsh studied under two of the most respected coaches in the NBA: Philadelphia 76ers coach Nick Nurse and Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle.
And both coaches expressed confidence in Marsh’s ability to transform the sky in his head coaching debut when the team traveled to Chicago to play the Bulls last weekend.
“Tyler has more rings than anyone sitting in this room right now, including me.” Nurse jokingly counted on her fingers Marsh’s four championship titles – one in the D-League, one in the NBA and two in the NBA. WNBA. “He’s got almost a handful.”
Nurse hired Marsh for his first job out of college with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the D-League (now known as the G League). Marsh was an all-access player development coach, responsible for answering the phone at any time of the day or night, taking players to the training facility and spending hours in the gym practicing their handles and rebound shots.
The Vipers won the D-League title that year, a win that immediately landed Nurse an assistant role with the Toronto Raptors. They spent five years apart, with Marsh working in assistant roles and Nurse on the front bench throughout the D-League until Nurse was named head coach of the Raptors in 2018. He immediately hired Marsh on his staff, and the pair went on to win another ring.
Over the three years they worked together, Nurse became accustomed to one constant: the presence of Marsh’s father, Donnie, a lifelong college coach. Donnie Marsh tagged along whenever possible, pen in hand, sitting in the empty bleachers and recording training camp practices and holiday workouts. Nurse quickly learned that this was a common trait in the Marsh family: a thirst for learning that matched their intense attention to detail.
Carlisle echoed this praise. But something else stood out to him when he first met Tyler Marsh, who had been an assistant with the Pacers for a year when Carlisle took over in 2021. Coaches rarely retain assistants from their old guards, but Marsh was a clear exception. Carlisle saw Marsh’s potential as a coach, but equally appreciated Marsh’s ability to attract attention despite his reservations.
“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 mentor, emulating Hammon’s communication, Carlisle’s skillful play planning and Nurse’s bravery.
The nurse couldn’t help but smile at the compliment. He knew exactly what Marsh meant by ‘fearlessness’. Sometimes it seemed brave. At times, it seemed downright crazy, like when Nurse and his coaching staff (including Marsh) decided to throw a box-and-one to Steph Curry in Game 2 of the 2019 NBA Finals.
Box-and-one defense is an unconventional tactic in which one player defends the opposing attack star man-to-man using a four-man zone. In this case, it was Curry who the Raptors desperately needed to slow down in the fourth quarter of Game 2.
The Raptors have never utilized this defense. In fact, it’s unclear whether any team had used box-and-one in the finals before that moment. Selling the concept quickly was as important as the plan itself, but Nurse knew how to thread the needle. He introduced the idea to locker room lynchpin Kyle Lowry, who presented the plan to his teammates and urged them to agree.
It didn’t work. The Warriors won Game 2. But the Raptors won the franchise’s first NBA championship in six games. As a result, Nurse credited his team’s willingness to take risks and make mistakes. And Nurse hopes Marsh will continue these traits throughout his time at Sky.
“I hope he gets some of that,” the nurse said. “For me, most of the time it happens out of necessity. You just look out there and say, ‘I have no choice but to try it right now.’ And you go for it. Some of them work. Some don’t. There’s no need to be afraid to try something a little different. You don’t have to be afraid to try to improvise and throw something into the game that your team hasn’t practiced before.
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Marsh is the latest in a long series of NBA assistant coaches to make the jump to head coaching positions in the WNBA, succeeding Hammon and Nate Tibbetts with the Phoenix Mercury.
This trend makes sense for Nurse, who believes there is no better experience than head coaching at any level. For Nurse, a WNBA head coach position has become the ultimate goal for any assistant, regardless of gender, to join the “top” tier of coaching acumen and rise through the ranks.
Carlisle agreed. He was caught up in the excitement of the Fever last summer, but was already closely tracking the Aces and New York Liberty.
One factor that sets the two leagues apart is always the same. It’s money. The average annual salary of an NBA head coach is $7 million. Only two coaches in the WNBA, most notably Tibbetts and Hammon, make more than $1 million a year. Many NBA senior assistant positions are better compensated than WNBA head coaching positions. And this salary gap will continue to define the WNBA’s ability to attract the best assistants in the NBA.
But basketball isn’t the problem. And as revenue continues to soar in the WNBA, Nurse and Carlisle believe the coaching tree will overlap more often between leagues.
“There’s a difference between a WNBA game and an NBA game, but it’s very interesting to watch,” Carlisle said. “The standard of coaching is very high. “For me, the position of head of the WNBA would be a coveted job,” he said.
