Kristi Toliver has a day job right now playing for the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA.
When that gig ends for the winter, she will become an assistant coach on Jason Kidd’s Dallas Mavericks staff, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
The Dallas Mavericks are hiring two-time WNBA champion Kristi Toliver as an assistant coach, sources tell ESPN. Toliver, who’s playing for the LA Sparks this season, spent parts of two seasons on the Wizards coaching staff.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 19, 2021
Toliver has done this dance before, spending part of the last two seasons on the Wizards staff. However, she couldn’t be fairly compensated because WNBA rules said teams could only pay players a limited amount of money ($10,000) for work in the offseason, and the Wizards and her former team, the Washington Mystics, have the same owner. That changed in the new CBA with the “Tolliver provision,” but she has found a new job now.
She becomes part of the overhaul of the front office and coaching staff in Dallas, where former Nike executive Nico Harrison is now the GM and Kidd is the coach. Whether that and more Luka Doncic — because Dallas didn’t make any bold offseason moves, adding Reggie Bullock and Sterling Brown, plus re-signing Tim Hardaway Jr. is nice but not thrilling — can lift the Mavericks higher than last season’s fifth seed in a deep West remains to be seen.
