Mercury GM, responding to Tibbetts hire criticism, touts diverse candidate pool,

Phoenix Mercury general manager Nick U’Ren, responding to criticism over the hiring of head coach Nate Tibbetts, said Friday that the organization’s candidate pool was “more broad than I could have ever imagined,” characterizing the hiring process as “long” and “thorough.”

The hiring, announced earlier this week, came under fire by many who pointed to diversity concerns as well as Tibbetts’ lack of experience coaching in the women’s game. Prior to his arrival in the WNBA, Tibbetts was a longtime assistant coach in the NBA for Portland, Cleveland and most recently Orlando, while also previously coaching in the G League.

Speaking at a news conference to introduce Tibbetts, U’Ren said that the organization “know[s] diversity and opportunity are critical, and I would say our process, our candidate pool and our finalist pool all reflected that.”

U’Ren was not asked on Friday to name the individuals who made up the candidate or finalist pool.

The Mercury hired U’Ren as their incoming general manager in July, while Josh Bartelstein is the new CEO for both the Phoenix Suns and the Mercury. New owner Mat Ishbia took control of the Mercury and Suns in February.

“I’m excited for us to be able to take action in terms of building a basketball operations staff and a coaching staff that reflects that diversity, that provides opportunity to people of all backgrounds, all expertise, all skill sets, and we understand that importance and we look forward to taking action, not just saying the words,” U’Ren said when asked about public criticism over the hire.

Phoenix’s past three coaches — Sandy Brondello (2014 to 2021), Vanessa Nygaard (2022-23) and interim head coach Nikki Blue (2023) — were all former WNBA players who also had been assistants in the league prior to their head-coaching stints.

Tibbetts, 46, is one of three male head coaches in the WNBA. The Washington Mystics‘ Eric Thibault was a longtime assistant for the team before he was elevated to head coach, while the Los Angeles Sparks‘ Curt Miller had extensive experience coaching in women’s college basketball before entering the league as an assistant for the Sparks. A year later, he was hired as coach of the Connecticut Sun.

U’Ren said the Mercury’s hiring process “took us through women’s and men’s college basketball, it took us into the international space, it took us into women’s and men’s professional basketball,” and that process ultimately led them to Tibbetts.

“Nate’s vision for how he wants to lead this operation and organization, both now and moving forward, aligned so well with what we were looking for in a head coach,” U’Ren said, “from his deep history in player development, to his interest and curiosity in the analytics space, to his detailed outline of how the offseason is going to look, to his philosophy on how we’re going to play and finally to how we treat players and people on and off the floor.”

Tibbetts’ deal makes him the…