Natalie Mitsue Nakase (born April 18, 1980) is an American professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

coach and former player who is an assistant coach with the

Las Vegas Aces The Las Vegas Aces are an American professional basketball team based in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. The Aces compete in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as a member club of the league's Western Conference. The team play ...

of the

Women's National Basketball Association The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is an American professional basketball league. It is composed of twelve teams, all based in the United States. The league was founded on April 22, 1996, as the women's counterpart to the Natio ...

(WNBA). After retiring as a player, she was a head coach for both men's and women's professional teams. She was later an assistant coach for the

Los Angeles Clippers The Los Angeles Clippers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles. The Clippers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division in the league's Western Conference. The Clipper ...

in the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

(NBA) Nakase grew up in

Orange County, California Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, a ...

, where she was honored as the county's high school player of the year. She played

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for the

UCLA Bruins The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Pac-12 Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF). ...

, receiving honorable mention as an all-conference player in the

Pacific-10 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Division ...

. A third-generation

Japanese-American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asia ...

, she became the first

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...

to play in the

National Women's Basketball League The National Women's Basketball League, often abbreviated to the NWBL, was an organization governing professional basketball leagues for women in the United States. The league was founded in 1997 and began play in the Fall of that year. The league ...

(NWBL). She also played in Germany before suffering a knee injury and retiring as a player. Nakase went into coaching, and served as a head coach of a women's team in Germany before becoming the first female head coach in Japan's top pro men's league. Nakase returned to the United States, joining the Clippers of the NBA as a video intern in 2012. She became an assistant coach to their

NBA G League The NBA G League, or simply the G League, is the National Basketball Association's (NBA) official List of developmental and minor sports leagues, minor league basketball organization. The league was known as the National Basketball Development ...

development team, Agua Caliente, in 2017. She became an NBA assistant for the Clippers in 2018, and joined the WNBA's Aces in 2022, when she became the first Asian American coach to win an WNBA title.

Early life

Nakase was born in

Anaheim, California Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most p ...

, the youngest of three daughters to Gary and Debra Nakase. Her parents are both second-generation Japanese-Americans. Nakase grew up in

Huntington Beach, California Huntington Beach is a seaside city in Orange County, California, Orange County in Southern California, located southeast of Downtown Los Angeles. The city is named after American businessman Henry E. Huntington. The population was 198,711 duri ...

, where she attended Marina High School and was a four-year lettererman playing basketball. She led the school to two Sunset League titles. In 1998, the team won their first California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Southern Section title. Nakase averaged 13.9

point Point or points may refer to: Places * Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland * Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States * Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland * Point ...

s and 8.6

assist Assist or ASSIST may refer to: Sports Several sports have a statistic known as an "assist", generally relating to action by a player leading to a score by another player on their team: *Assist (basketball), a pass by a player that facilitates a ba ...

s that season, when she was named the 1998

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

Player of the Year by both the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' and the ''

Orange County Register ''The Orange County Register'' is a paid daily newspaper published in California. The ''Register'', published in Orange County, California, is owned by the private equity firm Alden Global Capital via its Digital Fiest/Media News subsidiaries. ...

''. She finished her career as the Sunset League leader in career assists, and set school records for career assists, steals and

three-point field goal A three-point field goal (also 3-pointer, three, or trey) is a field goal in a basketball game made from beyond the three-point line, a designated arc surrounding the basket. A successful attempt is worth three points, in contrast to the two poi ...

s made.

College career

Standing at , Nakase was not heavily recruited by

programs. She turned down a full scholarship from the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

to attend her dream school, the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

(UCLA), where she was a walk-on for the UCLA Bruins basketball team. Nakase

redshirted Redshirt, in United States college athletics, is a delay or suspension of an athlete's participation in order to lengthen their period of eligibility. Typically, a student's athletic eligibility in a given sport is four seasons, aligning with the ...

as a freshman after injuring her left knee in an August summer league game, which required reconstructive surgery to repair her

anterior cruciate ligament The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of a pair of cruciate ligaments (the other being the posterior cruciate ligament) in the human knee. The two ligaments are also called "cruciform" ligaments, as they are arranged in a crossed formation ...

(ACL). She recovered to become a three-year starter at

point guard The point guard (PG), also called the one or the point, is one of the five Basketball positions, positions in a regulation basketball game. A point guard has perhaps the most specialized role of any position. Point guards are expected to run t ...

for UCLA, averaging 4.9 points and 3.7 assists per game in her career. In 2002, she earned honorable mention as an all-conference player in the

after averaging a career-high 7.9 points and 5.1 assists per game.

Professional career

Nakase played in the NWBL for two seasons, playing with the San Jose Spiders in 2005 and the

San Diego Siege The San Diego Siege was a women's professional basketball team in the now defunct National Women's Basketball League (NWBL). Based in San Diego, California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coa ...

in 2006. She was the league's first Asian-American player. In 2007, she tried out with the

Phoenix Mercury The Phoenix Mercury are an American professional basketball team based in Phoenix, Arizona, playing in the Western Conference (WNBA), Western Conference in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). The team was founded before the league ...

of the WNBA, but was waived. She coached an

Amateur Athletic Union The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is an amateur sports organization based in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs. It has ...

(AAU) team, and went to Germany to play one season with Herner in 2007–08, when she again tore knee ligaments. Opting to retire as a player rather than undergoing surgery again, Nakase coached for the

Wolfenbüttel Wildcats Wolfenbüttel Wildcats Baskets was a German women's basketball club from Wolfenbüttel playing in the Bundesliga. It made four appearances in the Ronchetti Cup in the 1990s, and in 2012 it won the national championship for the first time. In June ...

in the

Damen-Basketball-Bundesliga The Damen-Basketball-Bundesligen GmbH (DBBL) is a company founded in June 2001, which manages the first and the two second federal leagues of women's basketball in Germany. The shareholders of the GmbH are AG 1. DBBL, AG 2. DBBL and DBB. DBBL is ...

for the 2008–09 and 2009–10 seasons. She next went to Japan in hopes of playing, but learned that the Japanese women's league doesn't allow foreign players. A friend of Nakase's, Darin Maki, was playing with the

Tokyo Apache Tokyo Apache (東京アパッチ) was a Japanese basketball club, based in the city of Tokyo, Kantō Region. They played in the bj league, the top-level Japanese professional League. Their home games were played at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium II ...

, and arranged with his coach, former NBA coach

Bob Hill Robert W. Hill''The Sporting News: 1992-93 Official NBA Register''. St. Louis, Missouri: The Sporting News Publishing Co. 1992. (born November 24, 1948) is an American basketball coach. Hill grew up in Mount Sterling, Ohio, moving to Worthingto ...

, to allow Nakase to observe practice before the 2010–11 season began. She then prepared a scouting report for the team's next opponent, which led to a volunteer assistant coaching position under Hill. After the Apache folded at the end of the season,

Saitama Broncos The is a men's professional basketball club based in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. It calls the whole prefecture home and its main home arenas are Tokorozawa Municipal Gymnasium and Saitama Super Arena in Chūō-ku, Saitama City. It comp ...

head coach Dean Murray hired Nakase as an assistant at the urging of Hill. She took over the struggling team midseason after Murray stepped down, and became the first female head coach in the

bj league The was a professional basketball league in Japan that began in November 2005 as a six-team league. The league was operated as a competitor to the established Japan Super League which was run by the Japan Basketball Association, the official go ...

, Japan's top professional men's league. However, her father persuaded her to not return to Japan in order to pursue her dream of becoming a coach in the NBA. In September 2012, Nakase began a yearlong internship in the NBA with the

, working under the team's video coordinator. She became the team's assistant video coordinator. She was one of 15 women of Asian or

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe the original p ...

heritage honored at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

in 2013 as their Champions of Change. During the two-week

2014 NBA Summer League The 2014 NBA Summer League consists of two pro basketball leagues organized by the NBA and the Orlando Magic just after the 2014 NBA Draft. Ten teams took part in the week-long summer league at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida, from July 5 t ...

in Las Vegas, Nakase was an assistant coach for the Clippers, becoming the first woman to sit on the bench as an NBA assistant. In 2017–18, Nakase was an assistant coach for the Clippers'

affiliate,

Agua Caliente Clippers The Ontario Clippers, formerly known as the Agua Caliente Clippers of Ontario, are an American professional basketball team in the NBA G League based in Ontario, California, and are affiliated with the Los Angeles Clippers. The team began play in ...

, under head coach Casey Hill—the son of her mentor, Bob Hill. In 2018–19, she was promoted to be a player development assistant coach for the L.A. Clippers, becoming one of the few female coaches in the NBA. In 2020–21, Tyronn Lue replaced the departed

Doc Rivers Glenn Anton "Doc" Rivers (born October 13, 1961) is an American professional basketball coach and former player who is the head coach for the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). After playing for Marquette Universit ...

as the Los Angeles coach, and Nakase became an assistant again for Agua Caliente under their new coach,

Paul Hewitt Paul Harrington Hewitt (born May 4, 1963) is an American college basketball coach and the former head coach at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and George Mason University. He grew up in Westbury, New York. In 2021, he was named ...

. In 2022, she was a finalist for the head coach position of the WNBA's

. On February 25, 2022, Nasake joined the WNBA as an assistant to the

's new head coach,

Becky Hammon Rebecca Lynn Hammon ( rus, links=no, Бекки Хэммон; born March 11, 1977) is an American-Russian professional basketball coach and former player who is the head coach of the Las Vegas Aces of the Women’s National Basketball Associati ...

. She and Hammon, who was a long-time

San Antonio Spurs The San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio. The Spurs compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference (NBA), Western Conference Southwest Division ( ...

assistant coach, had been the NBA's two longest-tenured women coaches. On September 20, 2022, Nakase became the first Asian American coach to win an WNBA title.

Head coaching record

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Notes

References

External links

UCLA bio
at UCLABruins.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Nakase, Natalie 1980 births Living people Agua Caliente Clippers coaches American expatriate basketball people in Germany American expatriate basketball people in Japan American men's basketball coaches American sportspeople of Japanese descent American women's basketball coaches American women's basketball players Basketball coaches from California Basketball players from Anaheim, California Los Angeles Clippers personnel Point guards Saitama Broncos coaches Sportspeople from Huntington Beach, California Basketball players from Orange County, California UCLA Bruins women's basketball players