New Las Vegas Aces assistant coach hire continues WNBA trend

Ty Ellis joined Becky Hammon’s staff in Las Vegas after years coaching in the NBA G League, and as an assistant for various NBA teams.

The Las Vegas Aces have hired a new assistant coach: Ty Ellis, a veteran coach with a myriad of experience in the NBA, USA Basketball, and the G League.

“I’m super excited to add Ty Ellis to our coaching staff,” said Aces head coach Becky Hammon in an official statement. “He brings a wealth of experience both as a head coach and as an assistant from the NBA, G League and international play. Not only is his energy palpable, but his character and work ethic are things I highly value.”

The move signals a continued trend in which more and more coaches with NBA experience are flocking to the WNBA. Additionally, it helps replenish Hammon’s staff, after an offseason that saw two lead assistants become WNBA head coaches. Natalie Nakase became the head coach of the Golden State Valkyries, while Tyler Marsh became the head coach of the Chicago Sky.

Ellis has served as an assistant coach with a number of USA Basketball men’s teams for the past 8 years. He also served as the head coach of the G League Stockton Kings for two seasons, as an assistant coach for the Phoenix Suns, and as head coach for their G League affiliate, the Northern Arizona Suns. Now, he joins an Aces franchise that has won two championships in the past three years, and has a proven track record of helping successful assistants make the next step toward becoming head coaches.

“The organization’s success is a testament to the culture that Nikki, Becky, the entire staff, and players have built,” said Ellis. “Their commitment to excellence and championship-level standards in everything they do is truly inspiring. I’m grateful for the opportunity and I can’t wait to serve and add value to the entire organization.”

Ellis’s coaching transition from the NBA to the WNBA has become increasingly common, particularly in Las Vegas.

Becky Hammon worked with the San Antonio Spurs under Greg Popovich as an assistant from 2014 to 2020. Popovich has routinely praised Hammon, and expressed he believes she could be a head coach in the NBA as well.

“She’s somebody who’s very skilled and could very easily fulfill the duties of a head coach in the NBA. That goes without saying,” Popovich said in 2021. “There are women in every other endeavor in the world, whether it’s government, science, technology, aviation, it doesn’t matter what it is. Women do the same jobs as well and better than men. That’s a fact. There’s no reason why somebody like Becky and other women can’t be coaches in the NBA.”

After becoming head coach in Las Vegas, Hammon recruited Nakase from the Los Angeles Clippers, where she was a player development coach, and Marsh from the Indiana Pacers, who also worked in player development. Both have since made the highly-coveted leap to become head coaches.

This time around, Hammon tapped back into the NBA orbit to identify Ellis as a promising assistant.

Last month, Indiana Fever guard Lexie Hull said she presumed that the WNBA would have a larger batch of people to hire from given how much the league has grown.

“I think it’s moving in a good direction, because it’s more competitive and there’s more eyes on it, the pool of coaches that we can choose from can only get bigger and bigger,” Hull said. “We’re going to have great coaches coming up, and just excited to see what those eras look like. It’s unpredictable at this point, but I’m excited to see what it will look like a year from now.”

Phoenix Mercury head coach Nate Tibbets is another example of someone with significant NBA experience transitioning to the WNBA. Tibbets worked in the NBA G League — and subsequently as an NBA assistant — for more than 20 years before accepting a head coaching role in Phoenix, with assistant stops in Cleveland, Portland, and Orlando.

While official salaries aren’t always disclosed, both Hammon and Tibbets are reportedly earning more than $1 million annually, a figure that’s higher than most NBA assistant coaches make. The rest of the coaches in the WNBA make under $700,000, though that figure is expected to rise in the coming years.

There are still a number of outstanding head coach positions available in the WNBA — the Los Angeles Sparks, Connecticut Sun, Dallas Wings, Atlanta Dream, and Washington Mystics are all hiring — and it’s very likely that more will flock from the NBA landscape to enter the WNBA arena. After all, the NBA boasts 30 teams and 31 G-League teams, each with a staff that can include up to a dozen official assistants and player development coaches. Given that the WNBA doesn’t have a developmental league, there’s a less obvious pool of experienced professional coaches to draw from.

The conventional pathway to coaching in the WNBA remains being intimately involved with the women’s game first, as either a player, coach, or both. But, the Aces have recruited from a different pool in recent years, and Ellis serves as the latest example.