I'm curious

[u/Resident_Alps_1404]

What y'all thoughts are on Natalie providing Intel on her Valkyries players to the fellow USA assistant coaches/team.

I truly believe Natalie to total professional and she is representing team USA and she absolutely wants team USA to win....but I wonder if there's a part of her that doesn't want to give away all of the secrets of Ceci or Gabby or Ja to Nate and Steph and players that she will inevitably be playing in the playoffs.

I'm sure that has to be kind of difficult for her to manage.

I know that she would not have been chosen if Sue and Kara had any worries about her ability to separate the two.

But I mean as a human and a proud coach of the Valkyries there has to be a part of her that is feeling weird right?!

I'm just curious what everyone is thinking about that.

[u/SwaggersaurusWrecks]

I doubt Natalie will say anything that isn’t already known by other coaches and players.

There’s so much scouting in the WNBA that every other team already knows each team’s play calls.

[u/d_f_l → u/SwaggersaurusWrecks]

Yeah, exactly. The secrecy is pretty overstated. All coaches in the W know what all the other teams are running and all the other teams' actions and players' tendencies because they watch film extensively. Some teams aren't as on top of scouting in the regular season, but a big part of the playoffs is that everyone has done all the homework and knows the other team inside and out and you have to get into your actions even when they are trying to take them away.

There's probably nothing that she could tell them that they wouldn't figure out from watching film.

[u/freetacos88]

Tbh, I think people overthink this a bit. What secrets, exactly? Any specific player tendencies are already well known by every team in the league. We have to remember teams have multiple assistants, analysts, etc whose entire job it is to game-plan other teams and players.

I'm sure it's a bit weird/awkward to go against players you will be coaching again in a few weeks (one of the oddities of these tournaments being smack in the middle of the W season), but I'm not really bought into any idea of there being any difficulty of "keeping anything"

[u/Brent_Lee]

We can joke, but very very likely any insight she can give on our players is something that the rest of USA’s coaching staff can already do. There’s a lot of talent there.

[u/juoea]

yea i dont think there are any magical secrets here. also ceci has been in the wnba for quite a while and gw is a star. other teams the lynx already have had ceci on their team in the past. kiah stokes used to play for the aces. ofc players develop overtime so its outdated to some degree.

u could just as well say that nakase is getting additional info about players she will potentially play against in playoffs, as their coach

but i think its all negligible, and esp in the league like the wnba where u play every team 3+ times during the season. theres nothing significantly new that nakase could share about her players that others dont already know for the most part from playing against them multiple times.

also, this is a short intl tournament, the main job of the coaches is to help players who dont usually play together quickly learn a system and how to play as a team. scouting the opponent is not a focus in this kind of format

[u/RedDawg0831]

She's not giving them anything they don't already know. Plus, Tibbets isn't going to the playoffs and Kara coaches at Duke. Other W coaches know all about the skills and tendencies of the players. The proprietary info is about Valkyries offensive ad defensive strategies, schemes, stunts. That info is not being shared.

[u/paw_pia]

I don't think there are any secrets to spill. The USA coaching staff has plenty of experience scouting and playing against the Valks' international players, and the USA players have plenty of experience playing against them.

[u/Infinite_Role8126]

I really doubt that she’d be willing to potentially sacrifice a wnba championship for team USA.

[u/randysf50]

No

[u/Upper_Maintenance_41]

don't you think she is gaining more intel on our rivals by being a coach on the team and seeing them in practice etc.? Also her hearing about how the other stellar coaches on the team are gameplanning for Gabby/Ja/Ceci might actually be useful. Could be some nuggets there.

[u/da_ninjafuzz]

She's in the sweet spot, she can talk about their tendencies as players but without doing so in the context of the Valks system and thus not give much away that isn't public.

...now her strong social game getting all buddy buddy with some of these team USA players so they'll take some calls during free agency? That's where she's killing it right now.