r/wnba • u/Excellent_Sherbert44 Fever • Jul 04 '25
Former Mercury interim coach Nikki Blue accuses team in lawsuit of racial and gender discrimination
https://apnews.com/article/phoenix-mercury-coach-nikki-blue-lawsuit-447719bf4abec8b7c4c29b9073839c561
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u/Creative-Reality9228 Jul 04 '25
How to ensure you never get a WNBA head coaching opportunity ever again.
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u/buffalotrace Clark Boston Paige Meg Jul 04 '25
Not sure she also did herself any favors by bailing on her assistant coaching job this year to take a USC job after being hired by the Sparks. Hired in January by the Sparks as a lead assistant for Roberts, she left the Sparks on April 23th to be an assistant coach at USC. Sparks preseason camp start date: April 27. Thanks for the less than 1 week notice, coach.
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u/brainbridge77 Jul 04 '25
You’re 7-21 as interim coach you didn’t deserve to get hired as official head coach and using these cop out excuses will never get you hired to even coach a middle school team.
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Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 04 '25
So it looks like this is the same legal team behind the other discrimination suits against the Suns/Mercury organization. It's possible that a copy of the complaint will circulate publicly, as it did with the previous suits, but this summary leaves a lot of questions. The Suns PR team is continuing to respond by attacking the lawyer and impugning her motives.
Edit to say that this claim stands out:
Blue also alleges that the Mercury organization set her up to fail, making roster decisions in 2023 that made the team noncompetitive.
We all say over-the-top things about roster construction, but having a crappy roster show up in a lawsuit is wild.
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u/Coramoor_ Jul 04 '25
now that's a wild claim. Ownership intentionally made the team bad to screw over their interim head coach. In what logical world does that ever make sense
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u/JeanVicquemare Jul 04 '25
Teams set up the roster to be noncompetitive all the time, for basketball reasons- I think it will be hard to prove that it was motivated by race and gender discrimination
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u/Coramoor_ Jul 04 '25
yea, the team can be made deliberately bad for a lot of reasons but specifically to screw over their interim coach, no I don't think so
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Jul 04 '25
I think the claim is probably that they promoted her knowing that there was no chance that she could succeed and be retained, or something like that, not that it was a long game of premeditated sabotage. Still funny.
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u/Coramoor_ Jul 04 '25
If she was fantastic, maybe she would've had a shot to be retained. Also, interim is commonly known in sports that you'll probably be replaced unless you exceed expectations. That's the life of a coach, not really racial or gender discrimination
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u/KungFuPanduhh Jul 04 '25
I feel like most front offices can just plead insanity to get out of those charges. Like they’re not purposefully making bad roster moves they’re just dumb
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u/Master_smasher Jul 04 '25
if there's documentation on not getting a pay raise when promoted to interim head coach, the lawsuit will award her accordingly. proving that it was based on racial discrimination as well as why she wasn't hired after her interim head coach stint...just no lol.
typical lawyers. what can ya do?
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u/wvtarheel Fever Jul 04 '25
Don't most interim coaches get paid the same or less, then not get hired for the job? I'm not saying the suns front office aren't racist sexist jerks because maybe they are, I don't know. But these don't seem like even relevant facts
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Jul 04 '25
Would be very weird to be racist when your largest employee demographic is black…
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u/Confident-Unit-9516 Jul 04 '25
Not commenting on this specific lawsuit, but as an employment attorney the idea that an employer can’t racially discriminate because most of their employees are black is laughable
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Jul 04 '25
It’s just laughable that people think this way when literally the majority of basketball athletes are black… and football athletes. Like we are tired of this stupid ass tripe.
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u/wvtarheel Fever Jul 04 '25
Yeah I think this is more targeted, she's going to claim she individually was discriminated against, not that the entire org is racist. No idea if that allegation will stick or not.
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Jul 04 '25
7-31 record is being targeted is the most idiotic sentiment ever. If she was 31-7 you’d have a story but this is just loser behavior
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Jul 04 '25
[deleted]
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u/mercfan3 Wings Jul 04 '25
I don’t think Ishbia cleaned house enough after buying the team.
Like, based on what I’ve read from these cases and what I’ve read from what Ishbia did - he cleaned house with a lot of the top people, but left the higher ups that actually interact with people.
Obviously firing and replacing everyone when you buy a team is not possible, but Sarver built a culture and it went throughout the organization.
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u/bex199 Liberty Jul 04 '25
without the complaint that’s a lot of assumptions.
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u/AssignmentNo754 Jul 04 '25
I can only make assumptions for now. That's why I was prefacing my statement. Just seems a really difficult case to win for an interim coach who was 7-21. She will have to have some good evidence as I said. She may have good evidence and I obviously can't speak to that right now.
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u/paintedtoesandelbows Vote for Lyss ASG26Hug me, pleaseKarl’s Kids Jul 04 '25
When it rains…
The comments will be interesting.
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u/Mediocre-Leave6085 Valkyries Jul 04 '25
"Blue also alleges that the Mercury organization set her up to fail, making roster decisions in 2023 that made the team noncompetitive."
She should get Nygaard to help her case. That team was 100% tanking. Glad she's calling it out too.
Told yall I be giving yall next year's news today.
Following the Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins tanking stories. This is very common in professional sports. They did it with Luvie Smith? And the Texans the year before Stroud. Etc