In just her second season as the head coach of the Golden State Valkyries, Natalie Nakase has her team overachieving. It wasn’t enough to take the team to the playoffs last year – the first expansion team to ever do it – or to be named coach of the year.
In 2026 Nakase has coached the Valks to a solid second place, has taken the team to another post season, and helped coach team USA to win the FIBA World Cup. But before there was a Ballhalla or even a bespectacled mascot named Violet, host Erin Lim got to sit down with Coach Nakase last year to talk about her personal journey to Golden State.
Note: A link to the original airing of the story of the Pioneers, and a story transcript can be found here
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Story Transcript:
REPORTER ERIN LIM: It’s 10 days before the regular season starts and I’m at the first ever pre-season game for the Golden State Valkyries. You can feel the excitement. For the team, and also for the coach.
Natalie Nakase comes out in her own uniform. Head to toe in black, wearing black and white Jordans, standing at only five foot two. She is a whole vibe. For me, it’s exciting to see this kind of representation on a WNBA court. To be able to see someone who looks like me becoming the first Asian American head coach, truthfully got me teary-eyed.
As tip off is just moments away, Nakase huddles with the team on the sidelines one more time before WNBA history is made. Off the court, she tells me basketball for her is all about the people.
NATALIE NAKASE: Coaching to me is a couple of things. It's caring about a ton of people. More importantly, their confidence. I think that's the biggest thing. That's what my dad instilled in me when I was young.
When she was around second or third grade age, she would stay out late shooting hoops in the front yard with her dad and two older sisters.
NAKASE: They're a little taller than me and so they would just block me and block me and block me. My mom would be yelling at us, “Get in the house, it's dinner time!” and we're like, “No, we have to see who wins.”
She played every day. She got the passion for basketball from her dad, Gary.
NAKASE: I think without me knowing it was my love language with my dad. We bonded over it.
Even in high school, Nakase was a star and followed her own rules. She was named Orange County player of the year. She turned down a full basketball scholarship to UC Irvine to take her chances at her dream school, UCLA. There, she was a walk on player for the Bruins basketball team. After injuring her knee as a freshman she came back to play as a starting point guard.
After college, she went on to play professionally, becoming the first Asian American player in the National Women’s Basketball Association. This was her first “first.” But then, Nakase injured her knee again. That’s when she decided to follow her instinct to coach.
NAKASE: When I couldn't get on the court for eight months, so not having that ability to have that feeling to be on the court, then I realized like, it is my true passion.
So Nakase became another first: the first female coach for a Japanese professional men’s basketball team. But her dad encouraged her to come back to the U.S. to try coaching in the NBA.
She started out as an intern for the L.A. Clippers and worked her way to become the first woman assistant coach to sit on the bench during an NBA game. If you’re keeping score, that’s now three big firsts in her young career.
In 2022, Nakase joined the WNBA as an assistant to the head coach of the Las Vegas Aces, where she helped lead the team to two back-to-back championships.
And then in the fall of 2024, she became yet another first. A first that she had been dreaming of for a long time.
It took more than a decade of hard-work and grit to get to this point: the first Asian American head coach of a professional U.S. team. But it’s all in Nakase’s DNA.
Like when she was being considered for the job she sat down to lunch with the owner of the Golden State Warriors, Joe Lacob…
NAKASE: He reminded me of my dad. So when Joe Lacob said, if you take this job, we have to win in 5 years. I slammed my hand on the table and I said, Let's go.
Leading the newest WNBA team since 2008 is a huge job. As a former player turned coach, Natalie leans on her own experiences and how her dad coached her.
NAKASE: I think at the end of the day, no matter the talent, the best team that's more connected and family-feel, I think we'll probably win.
Nakase knows that there are WNBA players that are just as good on the court as their NBA counterparts.
NAKASE: The women are just on a very high level that the more you expose them, then I think people are really going to appreciate the level of the WNBA.
Social media has been the place where Coach Nakase finds up-and-coming players, specifically Asian American basketball players. For her, growing up, there was just one high profile Asian player, and he was in the NBA - Jeremy Lin. But now there are AAPI players in the WNBA like Te-Hina Paopao of the Atlanta Dream, and Alissa Pili of the Minnesota Lynx.
NAKASE: It's really nice to see all these, you know, Asian Americans coming into fruition and they're coming into the WNBA.]
Having and being that kind of representation is big for Nakase. It feels like that’s why the Bay has embraced her so hard.
NAKASE: I talked to a fan and he just said, you know, Oakland's about grit, it's about struggle. Everyone has gone through something where they had to get out of some type of adversity. I think as a head coach, I can bring them joy. I think that's what attracted me to the bay once I really settled in is that there's a lot of tough people here. There's a lot of survivors. There's a lot of people that really love the fact that they come from the bay. They're really prideful of where they came from.
Nakase says that she’s going to bring that kind of pride and grit to the court.
NAKASE: I kind of have a mentality too of when we do play, it's gonna be like win or die.
Coach Nakase’s dad passed away in 2021 but the rest of her family will be in the stands at Valkyries games. Being half-Chinese, I had to ask Coach Nakase how they are feeling about her head coaching debut.
NAKASE: You've mentioned your family. Is the family finally proud of you? Are they proud of Natalie? You know, our community can be hard on us a little bit.
NAKASE: As Japanese Americans, I would say we don't really share, but what I do know is the way we show that we're proud is that we show up for each other. I know my family's going to show up. We get, we call it the “head nod of approval.” It's something my dad, you know, did with our family to show that he's proud and as long as my sister, all my sisters–my mom won't do it– but if all my sisters do this, I think, yeah, that's our signal.
Adding to her firsts, Natalie Nakase had her first win as the head coach of the Golden State Valkyries against the Washington Mystics. It was at the Chase Center, in front of the home crowd, and Valkyries fans went wild. They’d been waiting for this since 2008.
It was another history making moment for her and the Valkyries, setting us up for an exciting season of more firsts.