MINNEAPOLIS — When Sue Bird was appointed as the Managing Director for the U.S. women’s national basketball team earlier this month, Cheryl Reeve reached out to congratulate her.
Reeve, the 58-year-old longtime coach of the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx, coached Team USA to its 10th Olympic gold medal last summer in Paris, France.
“I was thrilled for USA Basketball to appoint Sue to the position, and I thought the timing of it was great,” Reeve said last week before the Lynx played the Dallas Wings. “The evolution — you know, it’s hard to change something. It’s been so successful for so many years. And so, I give leadership, General (Martin) Dempsey, (CEO) Jim Tooley, just a lot of credit for that decision.”
But beyond that, Reeve says she and Bird haven’t talked about anything else, such as, if Reeve will continue to be the head coach of the senior national team.
“I congratulated Sue, and that’s been the extent of our conversation,” Reeve said when asked by SB Nation if she planned to coach the team in 2026 or 2028.
And so, with the FIBA World Cup approaching in about a year, and the next Summer Games on U.S. soil looming in 2028, it’s unclear who the next coach of the ultra successful U.S. women’s basketball team will be.
At her introductory press conference on May 8, Bird — who won five Olympic gold medals while representing Team USA as a player — identified “choosing a coach” for the 2026 World Cup in Berlin as one of her top priorities.
“There’s no specific timeline on that, but obviously that is super important,” Bird said. “And then once that’s done, choosing the larger staff.”
Based on the history of the U.S. national team, it wouldn’t be stunning if Reeve doesn’t continue on as head coach. Really, it would only be surprising if she is indeed standing on the sidelines in Los Angeles when the Summer Games begin in 2028. Beginning with Billy Moore in the 1970s, only one of the 11 coaches to lead the national team have coached in multiple Olympics: Geno Auriemma. Though, it’s worth noting that Pat Summitt would have likely been the coach for the 1980 team too had the U.S. not withdrawn from the games in Moscow. Instead, her lone Olympic coaching stint came in 1984, when the U.S. won the gold for the first time.
Every other coach that has led the national team has typically coached for just one cycle that includes a World Cup and an Olympics. That group includes Kay Yow, Theresa Grentz, Tara VanDerveer, Nell Fortner, Van Chancellor, Anne Donovan and Dawn Staley.
Should Reeve remain the coach, she would join Auriemma as the only two people to coach the women’s national team in multiple Olympics.
Tooley told the Associated Press that Bird’s term for managing director is for four years. She’ll have a major say in what the roster looks like and who the coach is for the World Cup and Olympics.
“Of course I’ve started to think about it, jotting some names down here and there,” Bird told the AP of choosing the next coach. “It’s the first priority without a doubt. There are so many qualified coaches in college and the WNBA.”
Should Bird not decide to retain Reeve as the coach of the national team, one possible and seemingly logical successor could be Kara Lawson.
The head coach of the Duke Blue Devils has a long history with and deep ties to Team USA. She won a gold medal as a player in 2008 — playing alongside Bird — and coached the Americans to an Olympic gold in 3×3 basketball at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo. Lawson was also an assistant coach on Reeve’s Team USA staff last summer and was the lead scout for the gold medal game against France. Additionally, she has already been appointed as the head coach of Team USA for the FIBA AmeriCup this summer in Chile.
Lawson coached the Blue Devils to an ACC Championship this season, her fifth at Duke, and guided the team to its first Elite Eight appearance since 2013. It’s also worth noting that Duke athletic director Nina King was appointed to the USA Basketball Board of Directors for a term that runs through 2028.
The next FIBA Women’s World Cup begins on Sept. 4, 2026, in Berlin, Germany.
