Is it total career wins or the most league titles that make a coach worthy of the well-worn sports term, “winningest?”
If the No. 1-seeded Lynx come away with a WNBA-record fifth title in October, it won’t matter when discussing head coach Cheryl Reeve. It’s either. Or both.
Leading Minnesota through next week’s second-round series against Phoenix — which defeated the Liberty 79-73 on Friday night — to another Finals win would break a stalemate with Van Chancellor, who coached the Houston Comets to the league’s first four trophies, from 1997 to 2000.
Reeve already picked up her record 414th victory as a head coach — all with the Lynx — in a 101-72 blowout against Golden State to open the first round of the playoffs. The win edged her past Mike Thibault, who spent two decades as coach of the Connecticut Sun and Washington Mystics.
“Turning over every rock to see where we can get an edge and an advantage, to be able to do that day in day out, with all the other things she has to juggle on her plate, managing an organization,” said Eric Thibault, Mike’s son, who joined Reeve’s coaching staff as associate head coach this offseason. “She just is full commitment to every part of the job,”
Now in her 16th season with Minnesota, Reeve has won Coach of the Year four times and helped build and then rebuild title-contending teams.
Here’s a year-by-year breakdown of how those 414 wins piled up, and how a record fifth title came into reach.
The Lynx, which had made the playoffs just twice in the previous 11 seasons, hire Reeve, who had spent four years as an assistant coach, then general manager, for the Detroit Shock.