{"id":509525,"date":"2026-01-11T23:13:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T23:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/509525\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T23:13:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T23:13:10","slug":"cheryl-reeve-and-rebekkah-brunson-on-the-success-of-the-minnesota-lynx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/509525\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheryl Reeve and Rebekkah Brunson on the Success of the Minnesota Lynx"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before Cheryl Reeve was named Lynx<\/a> head coach, she had already won two championships in Detroit as an assistant. Her vision for elevating the Lynx\u2019s culture was focused on bringing in proven winners, like former Gopher Lindsay Whalen, who had been to a WNBA Finals, and Rebekkah Brunson, who had won a championship with Sacramento. The Lynx won the Maya Moore lottery in 2011 and won their first championship at the end of that summer. Reeve\u2019s core\u2014Moore, Whalen, Brunson, and Seimone Augustus\u2014went on to win three more titles, at one point playing in six of seven finals. With Reeve being named to the 2026 Hall of Fame, that means all of them are in the Hall, except for, ludicrously, Brunson. (This injustice cannot stand!) Reeve is still the Lynx\u2019s head coach, now with both Brunson and Whalen as her assistants. They are hard at work on bringing home a fifth ring together in Minnesota. Reeve and Brunson hopped on a Zoom to discuss what winning at the highest level feels like from the inside.<\/p>\n

What was the franchise like when you first got here, and what was your vision for success?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cheryl: <\/strong>I\u2019d been coming here for 10 years, and I always enjoyed coming as a visitor. But that was part of the problem\u2014I don\u2019t think you should enjoy coming to your opponent\u2019s city. We wanted Minnesota to be a place you don\u2019t enjoy. The food doesn\u2019t taste as good; the experience at the club isn\u2019t as fun when you came here and you got your ass kicked, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rebekkah, you won a championship in Sacramento before that franchise folded, and you came here in the 2010 dispersal draft. How did you instill a winning culture from the players\u2019 side?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rebekkah: <\/strong>Seimone Augustus was a generational talent\u2014you could see that [the Lynx] were so close to being good. There wasn\u2019t this feeling of, \u2018Oh my gosh, I got to go play with this bad team.\u2019 Now, I didn\u2019t know a lot about the city, because you fly into Minnesota, all you see is what\u2019s surrounding the arena downtown. From a basketball perspective, I mean, I probably thought there won\u2019t be that much distraction.<\/p>\n

Haha. It\u2019s quiet!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rebekkah: <\/strong>Obviously, we didn\u2019t do what we needed to do in 2010, and we ended up with Maya. And I\u2019m very, very grateful for that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cheryl, when the Detroit Shock relocated to Tulsa, you were offered a job on Nolan Richardson\u2019s staff. You\u2019ve been quoted regarding that time: \u201cI\u2019m done propping up these men. Grinding my tail off and not being thought of because I\u2019m not a man with an NBA background.\u201d Blunt-force truth! I think it speaks to both your desire to be a head coach and your belief that championship-level players want honesty.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cheryl:\u00a0<\/strong>Rebekkah can attest to this\u2014I\u2019ve kind of assigned her to be my filter in a way with this generation of players. She didn\u2019t have the benefit of the filter when she was playing.<\/p>\n

Rebekkah: <\/strong>I had [assistant coach] Jim [Petersen]!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cheryl:\u00a0<\/strong>Yeah, you had Jim. But I would say that I\u2019ve always opened my mouth. With age comes wisdom, but ultimately, I think the moment for me was working for Bill Laimbeer. In a couple of previous experiences I had coaching in the WNBA, I had to sort of creep around. That didn\u2019t feel great. And when I worked with Bill, I felt like I could be my 100 percent authentic self, because he was his authentic self. The people around him were their authentic selves. But being able to mature, to grow in your delivery\u2014I\u2019m still on that journey. And like we\u2019d say, with family, it\u2019s not supposed to be easy. As I was teaching my son recently, a coach or a teacher gets paid to tell you the things you\u2019re not that good at. And that\u2019s a lonely place sometimes. But I want to be surrounded by truth tellers. I believe it works the best.<\/p>\n

Did you ever have to modulate your message depending on the player?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cheryl: <\/strong>I try to thank the team every year for allowing me to be myself. In some years it was easier than others, but I would say most of my time here I tried to allow the players to be themselves. And that meant that Seimone, you know, cussed back at me. That\u2019s great. I wanted to get Seimone where she was kind of kind of hitting me back hard, because that rose her level of play, right? Some players, those things work. Coaching Lindsay Whalen was a different scenario. Whay is an oldest child in her family. And with that comes a pleasing dynamic\u2014pleasing her parents or, in this case, you know, pleasing me. And if she felt like I was disappointed in her, it really affected her. And so I had to kind of pick my spots a little bit more with Whay.<\/p>\n

BB, you have this wonderful diplomatic ability as a basketball pundit. So, how is modulating your message for a television audience different than delivering a message as a coach?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rebekkah: <\/strong>If I\u2019m talking about a Wolves game and a player had a poor game, if I am sitting further than arm\u2019s length away, then I\u2019m just talking shit. But if I see them at practice and be like, \u201cHey, get under your shot,\u201d it\u2019s OK to say those things to their face. As an analyst, my job is to let the viewers know there\u2019s hope. So, it\u2019s important to point out the positives. But as a coach, it\u2019s my job to help the players be better.<\/p>\n

Which role is more closely aligned with your authentic self?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rebekkah:\u00a0<\/strong>As an analyst, I\u2019m just watching. I can help the viewer understand, but coaching is so much more rewarding because I have an influence on the result. Not to say I don\u2019t like the analyst part, but as far as what fills my cup, it\u2019s the coaching, for sure.<\/p>\n

After getting Maya Moore your second year here, you immediately won your first championship. And then you contended almost every year until BB\u2019s retirement in 2018. What did it feel like from the inside?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cheryl:\u00a0<\/strong>When we traded for Lindsay, she said, \u201cCoach, if we win, they\u2019ll come.\u201d She experienced it at the U when they were a Final Four team. So, we certainly felt that rise of interest. And externally, one of my favorite things is to go on the road and beat the home team. Live for it. In 2010, going into a place, they were real happy to see you. And then it changed to getting booed. Probably after maybe the third championship, there started to be some real Lynx fatigue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What did it feel like as a player, BB?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rebekkah: <\/strong>I feel like it took a while. I mean, from the inside, I don\u2019t feel like people ever really wanted to see us be great. That\u2019s just my opinion. Like, certain situations where you feel like you should have had an MVP and you didn\u2019t. Maybe it\u2019s because we\u2019re the small-market team, nobody was like, \u201cYes, the Lynx again!\u201d But our fans were behind us\u2014Target Center was always rocking.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re both true Minnesotans now\u2014feeling jobbed by the national media, jobbed by the refs. You got that small-market chip on your shoulder.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cheryl:<\/strong> I\u2019ve moved around\u2014and though I was born in Nebraska and was a Vikings fan as a youth, I\u2019m more of an East Coaster. But should market size matter? To me, it\u2019s like, \u201cWho cares how big the population is?\u201d But to Rebekkah\u2019s point, you know, why weren\u2019t they more talked about? Why didn\u2019t they get more award recognition? I think maybe in some ways the rationalization could\u2019ve been we had five starters that are Hall of Fame. (You know, we obviously still have to have Rebekkah get in on that.) Now, that hurt a Seimone Augustus, who without us is a 20 ppg scorer and with us is 16 ppg. But those players were some of the most likable players ever. Now the coach, not as likable\u2014maybe that\u2019s what it was.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rebekkah: <\/strong>At home versus LA in 2016, it was the refs not understanding the rules. I don\u2019t think there was a conspiracy, just stupidity. This year, in the Phoenix series, I\u2019ve never been in a season that had such an abrupt ending. It was weird. I really feel like the market-size effect only hit us in the New York series, when you had the ability to make the right decision several times, and you didn\u2019t. That was the one where you could clearly say, \u201cOK, the big market has entered the chat.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cheryl, we were talking during the cover shoot about how it feels like the W is experiencing what the NBA experienced in the \u201970s\u2014when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird went from college to the pros.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cheryl: <\/strong>As someone that entered the league in 2001, we\u2019ve always had a belief that if we were invested in properly, we would take off. But sometimes it takes a while for sports leagues to find their footing. You mentioned the NBA in the \u201950s and the \u201960s\u2014they needed the Harlem Globetrotters for people to come, right? Then they had their merger with the ABA. They had teams that were relocating, folding\u2014all the things that the WNBA experienced. The NBA had their inflection point with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Not unlike what we experienced with Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. And unfortunately, race is a factor\u2014in terms of creating those conversations and those divisions. So, when did I notice things changing for us? After Caitlin Clark declared for the draft, Carley Knox, our president of business, my wife, said, \u201cOh my gosh, the amount of calls we\u2019re getting for people wanting to come\u2014not just to the Indiana games.\u201d It was a surge of interest\u2014a massive lift, in every market. For so long, we weren\u2019t able to get fans to follow our players from college to pro\u2014that\u2019s the nut we\u2019ve been trying to crack. We have it now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But in the selection process for USA Basketball, did it feel like you were being pitted against Caitlin Clark\u2019s fans?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cheryl:<\/strong> I think the unfortunate part, when you get a fan base of a certain player, whether Caitlin or Angel, those fan bases are very large. And they don\u2019t always understand the inner workings, whether it\u2019s the league or USA Basketball and its processes. And so it\u2019s a lack of education, which often leads to problems. So I think the fan base pitted themselves against me. They just needed someone to blame, I guess. And I took a lot of bullets for USA Basketball.<\/p>\n

You sure did.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cheryl: <\/strong>But ultimately, I\u2019ve had conversations with Caitlin\u2019s family. They know\u2014I\u2019ve openly talked about Caitlin and her skill. And there\u2019s controversy every time the national team is announced to go to the Olympics\u2014it\u2019s the Olympics. Everyone wants to go.<\/p>\n

Rebekkah, with the league blowing up, is a part of you asking, \u201cWhat took so long?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rebekkah: <\/strong>I\u2019m excited about it. I think that for me, it started to happen during Caitlin and Angel\u2019s senior seasons, when the media got involved. The media plays a huge role in our product. For so long, we were on the last page of the paper; no one was talking about it on major sports networks. We\u2019re funny as consumers; whatever you put in front of us is what we\u2019re going to take. And if you never put women\u2019s basketball on the front page, then the consumers are not interested. So, the change happened when the media put Angel and Caitlin on the front page.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So do you feel like you\u2019re getting respect from the players who are playing now?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rebekkah:\u00a0<\/strong>I don\u2019t think that the lack of respect ever comes from the players. Like when you hear dudes talk poorly about the WNBA, it\u2019s never NBA players. I mean, you do have your instances, but for the most part, it\u2019s Joe Schmo over here, right? And the same thing with the W players\u2014they respect the vets. They watched the game before they got into the game. They know it and they understand it. You talk about pay\u2014somebody had to pave the way. We did this because we love the game and we believed in women\u2019s basketball and we believed in what we were doing. That was it, right? I\u2019m so excited for what is happening with this league right now. I\u2019m so excited for the way the players are going to be able to benefit from it. It\u2019s just a great place to be\u2014to be able to watch the growth of women\u2019s basketball. Not the peak\u2014the growth. Because we\u2019re absolutely still pushing forward to higher things, but it\u2019s exciting to see it.<\/p>\n

Cheryl: <\/strong>In some ways, sports are just a microcosm of society. Though we\u2019re nowhere close to where we need to be, look at what\u2019s happened in the growth of women in business, in politics. We still haven\u2019t elected a woman president\u2014we will. And those things are also happening in sports. And it doesn\u2019t come without hard conversations and battles\u2014like a CBA where the players know their worth. It\u2019s just a tremendous time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What needs to happen in this offseason to get back to the Finals and to get over that hump for that elusive fifth championship ring?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cheryl: <\/strong>Obviously, it\u2019s an unprecedented offseason, considering the timing of the collective bargaining agreement, with none of the players signing because they knew it was going to be a transformational CBA. You talked about so many great things about our franchise. Well, that\u2019s known by players around the league\u2014the respect they have for what Rebekkah and her peers have helped to build with the Minnesota Lynx, and for her to still be a part of it. So we\u2019re an attractive destination for a lot of players. So our priority is a combination of retention and addition in places that we feel can position us to compete for another championship in 2026.<\/p>\n

The Minnesota Lynx Top 10 (+1)<\/strong><\/p>\n