Q&A with new HOF inductee Swin Cash
Uconn great dishes on her role with Pelicans and WNBA evolution
No conversation about Uconn women’s basketball legends can proceed without mentioning Swin Cash.
Cash, who won two national titles at Uconn as part of the illustrious Class of 2002, was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame last month. This past weekend, the three-time WNBA champion (twice with the Detroit Shock and once with the Seattle Storm) was also named one of the 25 greatest and most influential players in WNBA history to commemorate the league’s 25th anniversary.
Since retiring from the WNBA in 2016, Cash joined the front office side of basketball, first serving as the New York Liberty’s director of franchise development and then as the vice president of basketball operations and team development for the New Orleans Pelicans starting in 2019, making her the first Black woman to earn an executive role in the NBA.
The Courant spoke with Cash this week to discuss her job with the Pelicans, reflect back on her playing career and assess both the progress and what’s to come for the WNBA. This interview has been edited and condensed.
You’ve previously spoken about how your role with the Pelicans involves a lot of culture building. What sorts of experiences have informed the sort of culture you’re working to build in New Orleans?
Cash: When we talk about culture building, it’s just really having a background and under
standing of what winning looks like, what success on all levels looks like, how you build, how you get consensus. A lot of it is attention to detail, the process. I’m a really process-oriented person. But I also am heavy on the basketball side when it comes to working with Griff [executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin] and [general manager] Trajan [Langdon] in our front office, as far as strategy, team-building, evaluating talent from a scout standpoint, so it’s all of those things.
Coming in, the biggest thing was Griff let me know because of what I was bringing, he really needed me to be that person, that glue, that can see what we need, can get in front of it, can build it and understanding the player’s perspective, understanding the front office perspective. And so that’s how I kind of approach my day. I wear multiple hats, but I’m never too far away from decisions that are being made within our organization and having a seat at that table and being able to contribute in a very organic way.
Now that you’re really immersed in the job, have you seen gains across the NBA in terms of more women getting hired, including more Black women, as coaches or in front offices? Cash:
I think with COVID, this whole pandemic, bubbles and everything else, I got hired and haven’t had one normal NBA season yet . ... I give a lot of credit across the league to teams. There was a wave when I came in of women hires, and then you saw Niele [Ivey] and Kara [Lawson] and other people go back to the like, ‘Oh man, we had these great hires and they left.’ But then you look and then ‘all right, here’s the next wave coming in.’ You still have T-spoon [Teresa Weatherspoon] that’s gotten promoted. You also see the hire with Eddie [Edniesha Curry] in Portland, and now Kristi [Toliver] in Dallas, and so I’m happy to see that. I feel like teams are really understanding the commitment that it’s going to take.
We’re definitely not there yet, but I was really happy to see this year the hires and how they were across the board.
Since you started in a WNBA front office, would you like to see more former players take on similar roles in the W too, including those who maybe don’t even end up going the NBA route but end up sticking around in the W specifically? Cash:
I get asked this question a lot and I tell people, it’s not a tiered system where it’s ‘OK, WNBA and then I want to move onto the NBA.’ That was never even my approach. It just really came down to opportunity. I do think the W has to be more intentional and committed to getting these former players in positions and allowing them to grow whether that is front office, that’s coaching. I’ve screamed that from the rooftop since I was a player, so my track record speaks for itself in that regard.
I give a lot of credit because after I retired, the New York Liberty and Isiah Thomas and Kristin Bernert, they came after me and they created the role for me as director of franchise development, having that hybrid between the ops side and the business side. When that happened, you saw multiple teams start adding that position and we were like, ‘All right, here’s a wave. Here we go.’ It’s a way to come in, you’re at this director level and
that to me was kind of heartbreaking. I’m hoping we get back to that because I think it’s necessary. But I got to where I am not because I was using the WNBA as a stepping stone. The NBA opportunity just presented itself. I wasn’t presented with an opportunity in the W, or I would have looked at that as well.
I’m sure you’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on your career recently with the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame induction, and then also being part of the W25. Now that you’ve been five years removed from your playing career, how have you looked back on it? Cash:
This year has really made me say that I wanted to start reflecting a little more. The craziest thing, I’ve never watched any of my championship games back on video. I was just like, that might be something cool to look at and just go back with my kids at some point.
You miss the locker room, the rides, the airplanes, all that stuff. I still have some of my closest friends that I’ve played with from the W. And so, the reflection for me is on the people. The reflection for me is on the work. Your body of work as far as on the court speaks for itself. That’s what you did, and I always prided myself on just being a winner and having that ability to affect winning on every team I played on.
And then I think off the court, being able to open up doors that a lot of other players have an ability to walk through right now, challenging the status quo, retiring unapologetic about how I went about my business and trying to be a change agent in many ways and give to the community and do the work to help other people, that’s probably the biggest pride and joy for me overall, on top of the winning.
What do you see as the biggest differences from when you first got drafted into the league until now? Cash:
Multiple things. The one thing is the opportunities to grow as a professional athlete. Obviously the CBA took a giant step this last time, and I’m so proud of the women for establishing that. I think the next phase is wanting to be ones to leave a legacy behind of opening up doors. So using social media, using the resources that weren’t readily available for other women when they started and built this league brick by brick, understanding where they are right now and what they have to do for this generation’s legacy for the next, I think, is really important.
I think the talent level, from top to bottom, you have no excuse of why you can’t work on your game or get better. The resources, the player development work, the information that’s readily available for you to be the best version of yourself is there if you want it. A lot of times, there were people that were just shooting in the gym, didn’t have rebounders, didn’t have this, and from the infrastructure standpoint, I think that is more advanced. The analytics, the information that you can get, those are the things that the women now have at their fingertips, and I hope they understand so many didn’t have that before and really take advantage of it.
And I think the next thing that has to happen is just more teams because there’s so much talent that’s coming out, but they don’t have the opportunity because there’s limited spots in the W, so growing the game is of the utmost importance.