Natalie Nakase’s next challenge? Coaching the Golden State Valkyries to Year 1 success

Natalie Nakase has never shied away from a challenge. 

For the new coach of the Golden State Valkyries, a challenge is merely a provocation, an opportunity to prove herself, which she relishes. One could even say a challenge hates to see Nakase coming.

When Nakase turned down a full scholarship to play basketball at UC Irvine and instead join the UCLA women’s basketball team as a walk-on, a former coach called her to tell her she was crazy. Nakase would become a three-year starting point guard and team captain.

When she was challenged to play pro basketball? She would do so in two different countries and become the first Asian American player in the National Women’s Basketball League.

When Nakase’s playing career was cut short due to injury, she became a coach in Germany. Within two years she became the first female coach in Japan’s top men’s pro league. She would speak of wanting to coach in the NBA, her aspirations often lacking external support.

She turned an internship with the LA Clippers into a position as a player development/assistant coach with the franchise.

“I think ever since I was young, I’ve loved challenges,” Nakase said. “I like things that are impossible.”

Her latest challenge? Finding an affordable home in San Francisco. However, it appears even the San Francisco real estate market is no match for her. 

“I think I found one,” she said.

Nakase, who most recently won two championships as an assistant coach with the Las Vegas Aces, was hired in October as the first coach of the Golden State Valkyries, the WNBA’s first expansion team since 2008. On Friday, the Valkyries will draft their first players through the WNBA expansion draft, and in the coming weeks, Nakase will fill out her coaching staff.

The task before Nakase – to put a competitive team on the court and succeed as a young franchise – is a steep one. When the Chicago Sky was introduced in 2006, the team went 5-29. The Atlanta Dream went 4-30 in its opening season in 2008. 

As Nakase’s journey has shown, though, it has always been a mistake to bet against her.

“People are saying expansion teams aren’t usually very good in their first year. Again, that’s a great challenge to tell me,” Nakase said. 

When Nakase was first hired, Golden State general manager Ohemaa Nyanin didn’t know just how involved Nakase would want to be from day one, particularly in planning for the upcoming expansion draft.

“The day of her press conference, she comes into the Oakland office and she’s like, ‘OK, so walk me through what you guys have done,’ ” Nyanin said. “She just is all in, like 100% focused on every bit of the process.”

Preparation has always been a part of Nakase’s process. When she was a video coordinator intern with the LA Clippers, she used that time to begin building her playbook – after timeout and sideline out of bounds plays and favorite sets.

“I think preparation obviously beats anything for an opportunity. I’ve been preparing,” Nakase said.

Last week, the Valkyries front office received a list from each of the other 12 teams in the WNBA denoting which players would be available to potentially select in Friday’s expansion draft. 

There are certain non-negotiables Nakase will seek in the players on her team. They will need to have a “ridiculous work ethic” and an “ultra-competitive mindset,” one that absolutely hates the feel of losing, she said.

“We want players to always strive for wanting more,” Nakase said. “I think that’s probably going to be a little bit deeper as we go into the expansion draft, like, which players really want to get better, which players never want to settle.”

They will need to be selfless, a quality Nakase deemed critical to the Aces winning their second championship.

“We were the selfless team, I felt,” Nakase said. “You always want to help your teammate. That’s key. We’re going to be connected at all times.”

The qualities Nakase looks for in her players align with her own individual tenets. Just as fervently as her father, Gary Nakase, pushed Nakase to get straight A’s in school, he’d equally push her to always be competitive on the field of play and be the best at what she does. As a point guard who idolized Magic Johnson, she adopted a selfless mentality, always wanting to make the game easier for others. At each stage of her basketball career, she hung her hat on being the hardest worker in the building.

“My journey as a coach, those have kind of been my staple pieces,” she said.

When Nakase got into coaching, she, like many, was driven by her desire to win. With the Aces, as an assistant under coach Becky Hammon, Nakase was able to experience that. While Nakase is still driven to hang banners, her motivation, her “why,” is centered on making her father proud. Her impulse to attack the impossible and pursue her goals without limitation was instilled early by her dad, who was Nakase’s best friend and mentor.

“That kind of now has really pushed my ‘why’ to be even better, to be even more different and to again, now as a head coach, win as many championships as I can,” she said.

When Nakase was 10 years old, she remembers walking up to her father in tears. Nakase had just come back from a basketball game in which she didn’t play well and had been disappointed by the words of a player from the opposing team. Without having context of what had been frustrating his daughter, Gary Nakase looked down and used the moment to share an important lesson. 

“Natalie, never give a f—- about what people thought or think of you,” said Gary Nakase, who died in 2021. “You tried your best. You’ve got to always believe in yourself – that’s more important.”

It’s a message that has stuck with Nakase, now 44.

“From that young of an age, I was able to block out a lot of the distractions and the noise that a lot of people talk about and just move on and focus on – whether it was my game or now as I coach – just focus on what I can control,” she said.

When the Aces won the first championship in franchise history in 2022, Nakase said she had opportunities to leave the Aces bench for another coaching position. Nakase, however, would opt to stay, deciding to remain “loyal” to Hammon because of the opportunity Hammon gave her.

“I told Becky, like, look, no, I’m your assistant,” Nakase said. “She took me in – she didn’t really know who I was as a person. After my first year of probably the best coaching experience I’ve ever had in my life due to her and due to the players that we had and the way we jelled quickly, I wanted to stay.”

After the Aces won a second consecutive title in 2023, Nakase said, her desire to leave the Aces shrunk even more. She was focused on rewriting the record books with Las Vegas.

“I wanted to win five [championships],” Nakase said.  “The goal was four, the Houston Comets won four, so in my mind I was like, I want to win five.”

Despite Nakase’s intent to remain with the franchise, Hammon encouraged her to take one of the interviews she had been offered – but Nakase wasn’t sure. 

“She knew I was ready,  and I think just having her support was what pushed me,” Nakase said.

Nakase ultimately talked to Nyanin. In the Valkyries, Nakase believed she had found the perfect fit.

In one of their last interactions before Nakase left Vegas, one she said was filled with tears and endless hugs, Hammon left Nakase with a parting message:

“You’re ready, now go kill it.”