The WNBA 2025 regular season is nearly 80 percent done, with teams locking in their spots for the postseason. The Chicago Sky was forced out of the playoff race early on August 21, following the Dallas Wings’ loss against the Los Angeles Sparks. Head coach Tyler Marsh addressed an important point that hampered the entire season, answering a question about the WNBA scheduling.
He added that the condensed schedules had a few impacts on the teams and that the league should put players first. He also gave advice to the league moving forward with the scheduling of the games.
Tyler Marsh Calls The WNBA’s Condensed Schedule ‘Unfair’
Every player, coach, and analyst called out the league for the 2025 season schedule. With the addition of the Golden State Valkyries, each team played 44 games in the season. But for the four added games, they got just four extra days in the regular season schedule.
This clustered the complete schedule, giving the teams an average of 2.6 days’ gap between two games. This gap includes travelling, which made the situation even worse. Satou Sabally was vocal about the WNBA schedule and mentioned that ‘no one cares about the player.’
Taking her point forward, the sky coach broke down the difficulties many teams faced due to the tight schedule. Answering the question about the schedule impacting the team’s performance, he also addressed the league’s dream of expansion.
“I think the schedule could be more conducive to the health of the players for one, but also, with the expansion, I think that yes, from an injury standpoint, but also from a player development standpoint. There’s already limited time to develop young players, and the expectation put on them is so great in such a short period of time that it’s really unfair to the player,” Tyler Marsh said in the post-game interview following his team’s loss against the Las Vegas Aces.
Scroll to continue reading
Trending WNBA News
Players like Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark, and Paige Bueckers came into the league with illustrious college careers. Naturally, fans and teams have high expectations of them. As per the 37-year-old coach, it’s unfair to the players to deliver in a short period of time with less preparation time.
In the game against the Las Vegas Aces, the Chi-Town Barbie and Kamilla Cardoso shone with double-double performances while Ariel Atkins scored 30 points. But they fell to in-form Aces 74-79.
Tyler Marsh Advises WNBA About Expansion
The head coach understands that the scheduling issue is because of the extra teams added to the mix. With the WNBA already announcing three more teams in the next five years, the Sky’s head coach gave some tips to the league.
“I think that with the expanded rosters, especially now with team expansion coming, there’s more of a need and necessity for intergrade player development plans and systems and resources because more of these young players that are going to get opportunities have to have some sort of room and grace and time to develop into professional basketball players,” Marsh added to his criticism about the league’s time-table.
As per the rookie coach, an expanded roster will allow teams to have flexibility over player development and also game time. This will smooth the flow and minimize the load on players as per Marsh.