Clippers: Sparks’ Toliver returns to Staples Center as Mavericks assistant.
LOS ANGELES >> When the Clippers are the home team at Staples Center, all the banners in the building are covered, effectively turning the arena that they share with three other teams into their own home digs — at least until the Intuit Dome debuts in 2024.
That means the Sparks’ three WNBA championship banners aren’t visible, including the one Kristi Toliver helped win in 2016.
So Toliver — a Sparks guard during the NBA’s offseason and an assistant coach for the Dallas Mavericks in the WNBA’s off months — had to at least mention it to the player she was working with before Sunday’s Mavs-Clips contest.
“I did say to Luka (Doncic) the other day before the game, I was like, ‘You know who has more banners than the Clippers? Your coach!’” Toliver said. “So that’s kinda cool, and the history of Staples and all that have played there, it’s fun.”
Toliver and the Mavs will return to Staples Center tonight for the second game of a two-game set.
The Clippers could welcome back Marcus Morris Sr. after a 15-game absence. The 32-year-old forward is probable to play after having been sidelined since the second game on Oct. 23 as he took care of “injury maintenance” on his left knee.
Meanwhile, the Mavericks list Doncic as questionable after he’s missed the past three games with left knee and ankle sprains, a designation that new Mavericks coach Jason Kidd was sharing with reporters after Monday’s practice when a loud bang reverberated through the Terasaki Budokan gym in Little Tokyo.
Doncic — who’d been involved in a five-on-five scrimmage — slammed the metal bleachers, and then sat unhappily before being tended to by a medical staff who wrapped his left knee in ice.
The Mavericks are not as good a team without the 22-year-old Slovenian sensation in the lineup, as their 0-3 record without him in the past week illustrates.
“We’ve missed him the past couple games, obviously,” said Toliver, a threetime WNBA All-Star, who in her first season with the Mavericks works closely with Doncic, a two-time AllStar and the 2018-19 NBA Rookie of the Year.
“He’s a joy and he’s a great guy, great dude, wants to be great and leave his mark on this game and it’s fun to watch that for everybody,” said the 34-year-old Toliver, who is the 15th female assistant coach in NBA history.
“And he’s a young guy, (so) there’s a lot of growth even to be had with somebody that’s so special and so different, obviously extremely talented.”
The other women who have held NBA coaching jobs include the Clippers’ Natalie Nakase, who has worked in various coaching capacities after starting as a video coordinator in 2012.
But Toliver — whom Kidd calls “a pioneer” — is the only active WNBA player to work as an NBA assistant, something she did initially between 2018 and 2020 when she played for the Washington Mystics (with whom she won a second championship) and coached the Washington Wizards.
She’ll stick with the Mavericks as long as their season lasts and then turn her attention to the Sparks, with whom she’s under contract for one more season. And they’ll get her all until the WNBA season ends, when she’ll switch gears again.
“I get that they kinda entangle a little bit, but I just have support on both sides, so they know when I’m there, I’ll be 100% ready,” said Toliver, whose current job has her working out with Mavericks players, reviewing film with her pod of players, and then, in coaches’ meetings, giving her opinion.
She said her time with the Wizards taught her how to prep, how to put scouting reports together and how to prioritize the advice she gives players, because “you can’t obviously tell them everything you see, so just understanding the most valuable things.”
It’s an all-consuming job, as Sparks assistant coach Latricia Trammell can attest, noting that Toliver seems very much to be enjoying the work.
“Kristi is going to continue being a sponge and grow as a coach and this is really going to help lead our team,” Trammell wrote in a message. “Kristi has a passion for growing our game and she loves the game, I guarantee she is making an immediate impact on the Mavs as a coach.
“I can’t wait to pick her brain about what’s she’s leaned on the offensive and defensive end.”
Toliver’s perspective as an active player appears to be a benefit, too, in part because she’s able to, say, implement strategies she does in her own workouts.
“She’s played and she’s playing, so that’s some of the best advice that we can have, from someone who’s still playing,” said Kidd, who was Toliver’s favorite player when she was growing up in Virginia. “She’s the best.”