← No Offseason: The Athletic Women's Basketball Show
No Offseason: The Athletic Women's Basketball Show
The Athletic's All Access: Greg Bibb, President, CEO and Partner of the Dallas Wings
00:35:15
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- [00:00]
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- [04:52]
Ben Pickman
For the athletic I'm Ben Pickman and this is the Athletic Women's Basketball Show. Welcome back to the Athletic Women's Basketball Show. Thank you all for tuning in and continuing to be curious about all the happenings going on around the sport. In recent weeks. We've talked a lot about what's going on in the college game, but it is also one of the busiest times in the WNBA calendar. Free agency is upon us and we appreciate our guest today for carving out some time to talk to us about it all. Joining myself and my colleague Sabrina Merchant, we have Greg Bibb, the team president, CEO and a partner of the Dallas Wings, who are one of the most exciting franchises in the wnba. Now, we should say we don't expect Greg to necessarily tip us off to any news or transactions on this podcast. So all the aggregators out there listening, they can mute their phones, you can mute your phones. But we still thought it would be valuable to hear more about his journey, what life is like now as a gm and how the role has changed since he got into the wnba. We figured he's got some stories to share along the way. So, Greg, welcome to the Athletic Women's Basketball Show.
- [06:11]
Greg Bibb
Thank you for having me. It's great to see you all. It must be time for a basketball season. I'm seeing old friends that I haven't seen in several months, so it's good to see your faces.
- [06:20]
Ben Pickman
Awesome. Well, the place we wanted to start is just so we could kind of level set and get on the same page. And I think some people in the audience would be curious to know a little bit more about your background, how you first kind of got into the wnba. Do you mind just kind of telling people about your earliest experience in the wnba, what that was like, how you first kind of got involved in the sport all these years ago?
- [06:41]
Greg Bibb
My journey in the WNBA began in October of 2007. I was recruited to Washington to serve as the Chief operating officer of the Mystics by by Ted Leonses and Sheila Johnson. And I served in that role in addition to an expanded role as the Executive Vice president of the Washington Wizards until the end of 2012. Then I went off and started a sports focused venture fund. And one of the individuals who participated in some of our initiatives was a gentleman named Bill Cameron, who I had known for some time. Bill is a limited partner in the Oklahoma City Thunder, but most relevant to this conversation, he is the majority owner of Walt, what was at one point the Tulsa Shock and now the Dallas Wings. And about the time the team was transitioning to Dallas, Bill and I were doing some business with my company based outside of Washington D.C. and knowing my background, he'd asked if I would, you know, talk to the folks who were going to be running the team in Dallas and just help them kind of initiate their business plan and, and those types of things. And I did. And then I'll skip a lot of steps along the way, but I got increasingly involved until April of 2017. I joined the company as an investor, a partner, but also as the president and CEO. And I've held that role since.
- [08:04]
Sabrina Merchant
Just to backtrack a little bit, being in Washington from 2007 to 2012. You mentioned that you had multiple roles. You were with the Wizards, you were with the Mystics. I'm assuming that wasn't uncommon in a WNBA front office for people to be wearing many hats. How expansive was the operation of the Mystics back then? How many things did you find yourself doing?
- [08:23]
Greg Bibb
So when I was originally hired, the company that is now known as Monumental Sports Entertainment, but at that time was called Lincoln holdings, only had in terms of a majority ownership position, the Washington Capitals and the Mystics there they were a very large but non operating minority investor in the Washington Wizards and what at that time was Verizon Center. But at some point along the way, I believe in 2009, Mr. A. Poland, who was the owner of the Wizards and Verizon center passed and there was a pre arranged agreement in place that Lincoln Holdings Ted would have the opportunity to purchase the outstanding shares of those entities. And he then executed that opportunity and kind of unified all of the assets. Wizards, Mystics, Capitals, Verizon center and some other things. And when that happened, a number of us that were in the Lincoln holdings group had an opportunity to expand a role. And for me that meant I became the executive vice president of business operations for the Washington Wizards. So I was the EVP of the Wizards and the chief operating officer of the Mystics. So from a Mystics perspective, I had full functionality over both the business and the basketball team. Although at that time for the most part we had a general manager in place. And then for the Wizards it was just a basketball only focused opportunity for me.
- [09:54]
Ben Pickman
What do you remember? You know, as you think back to then, your exposure on the basketball side back then in 2007-2012, as you mentioned, compared to right now? How would you say front offices have evolved? Have they grown in size at all? Have they changed philosophies? What changes have you seen if anyone?
- [10:10]
Greg Bibb
Yes, yes and yes. You know, our business has grown since 2007 till today. Our business has really accelerated its growth. And when I say our, I don't mean just Dallas, I mean WNBA holistically has really accelerated its growth in the last four years, five years. Everyone kind of looks at that bubble time frame is when things really started to accelerate. And I would agree for the most part with all of that growth, there's been a reinvestment by organizations in a lot of areas, but probably the one that's most prevalent is on the basketball operation side. So you've seen an expansion of staff, you've seen additional resource put in to player facing player related initiatives and with that becomes a sophistication in that part of our business. So, yeah, it has changed, it has evolved, and it has happened quickly and it's continuing to happen. And as we continue to grow, because we are nowhere near, in my opinion, where the ceiling for our business, our sport is, you're just going to continue to see that investment and that increase in resource on the basketball side of the business.
- [11:25]
Sabrina Merchant
What was free agency even like back then? Because I remember prior to this current cba, you could basically just offer any player who was starting for you a max contract and that was that. Like there wasn't really a lot of salary negotiation. So I mean, what was that process like?
- [11:38]
Greg Bibb
It's a long time ago. Hard to remember particulars. But I think in general your, your perspective is largely accurate. You know, you had a real kind of two side to the, to the salary cap to side of your roster. You had the players that were making max dollars at that time, which was a significant less max. And you had players who were basically on rookie contracts. And the middle class was extremely small. And because the dollars were smaller, because there really wasn't any kind of middle class movement was very restrictive. And some of the things that help promote movement now, like teams having the resource to go visit free agents, to put together campaigns and pitches, those things just didn't exist back then because the economics of our business didn't allow it. So there was probably less available from a player pool perspective in free agency, and there was less enthusiasm, not because we wouldn't want to, but enthusiasm because the dollars weren't there to kind of pursue the free agency opportunities, if that makes sense.
- [12:46]
Sabrina Merchant
Yeah, so just building off of that, like, it seems like the operation is a lot more expansive now. Like, what, what are you all doing at this point in terms of just like strategizing, visiting, like, what is this current free agency process entail for you all?
- [12:59]
Greg Bibb
Yeah, so it's definitely become more sophisticated. It's definitely become something that we spend more time on outside of this particular window, getting ready for, thinking about strategizing around. You know, for us in Dallas, we're kind of the opposite of that this year. Just so where we are in terms of our roster construct. You know, we've been very active the last four or five years. We've taken some big swings. We're kind of in retention mode now. It's like, okay, we like what we have. Let's try to hold on to it. So a little bit of a different process for us. And therefore we're probably different than what has been the general movement of the league just because of where we are with our roster construct.
- [13:49]
Ben Pickman
You talk about roster construct and one of the tenets of it right now is you have so many young players who are high draft picks and you know, who are blossoming stars and starters and stars in this league. Wondering, could you just explain kind of your philosophy on the WNBA draft, kind of where it came from, how you describe it and maybe put it in some context around the rest of the league?
- [14:10]
Greg Bibb
Yeah, I mean really the big driver for us and this strategy over the last five years or so has come out of necessity. We were faced with some decisions back in that time frame around some pretty significant pieces of our of our roster. And rather than try to make deals that would have brought back established players, but established players who I knew would not be equitable in talent to the players that we were losing, we decided to basically tear it down, aggregate draft capital. And to build that way, which takes longer, is a lot more painful. But in my opinion, the ceiling on the other side of that is much higher and much greater. And doing it also in volume gives you margin for error, for miss, and we've certainly had some of those. The draft, no matter how sophisticated you become, is not an exact science. And if you need proof of that, go look at the NBA where the resources are like in another stratosphere and still it is not an exact science. So you're going to have misses. So having volume of picks also helps in that regard. And that's the process that we have, we have followed. I also think the way that the CBA is constructed and how a salary cap works, it lends itself to adding young talent through draft rather than trying to have lower cost contracts that may be more experienced players. Just again, because while you may have a greater risk in that draft pick, I think the upside outpaces the potential downside in that scenario.
- [15:52]
Sabrina Merchant
When you talk about the upside, are you referring to like the team control of draft picks or.
- [15:56]
Greg Bibb
I'm talking about the talent level of the player.
- [15:58]
Sabrina Merchant
Got it.
- [15:58]
Greg Bibb
And what they're going to ultimately contribute to the team. But that's a good point too. You know, for all intents and purposes, a rookie contract is a four year process. If you're going to sign a vet, it's probably going to be much shorter. Either because they don't want to commit to long term at the low dollar amount you're signing them to, or you don't want to commit long term. Because if you're signing them at that low dollar amount, you probably don't feel like they're going to be a cornerstone part of your organization for the long term. So you get again, back to margin of error within that draft pick. You get margin of error because you have the length if you want them, and you have the ability to get out almost immediately if you don't.
- [16:38]
Sabrina Merchant
You know, you mentioned that Dallas has had a, you know, a large volume of draft picks over the last few years since this rebuild. What have you learned about scouting in terms of what skill sets you're looking for, what personality demeanor, all sorts of things in terms of identifying draft prospects.
- [16:53]
Greg Bibb
Yeah, I don't think there's a, like a perfect template of this is what you apply in every situation every year to every position, need to every player. And if you do A, B and C, you're going to get a good result with D. I think every one of those variables is just that, a variable and a difference. Year to year, situation to situation, draft position to draft, position, player to player. What we try to do here is make decisions through consensus and do it by committee with as many people as reasonably possible touching and participating in a process that we run for quite some time. And I think that volume of perspective which then delivers difference of opinion through lenses of folks with different experiences and backgrounds, helps you ultimately get to the best possible result.
- [17:53]
Ben Pickman
What do you remember? I mean, we talk about some results and obviously one of the best results that you guys have had in the draft before we turn to free agency a Little bit is 2019 WNBA Draft. The number five pick, Arique Gumawale, falls to you guys. And when you talk about the rebuild, she obviously has jump started, kickstarted, been central in so much of what you did then and today? Just what do you remember about that night being in the room as she, you know, slips down, I guess to five, all things considered, and you end up taking her with that selection.
- [18:26]
Greg Bibb
Yeah, that is pretty much the draft. If you said, where did this whole process really start? It started in 2019. And that goes, you know, probably if there was a book written about the history of the Dallas Wings. This chapter will be entitled Better Sometimes to be Lucky than Good. Because we were lucky with Arike. We obviously scouted her, we knew all about her, but honestly, our focus was not on her because we never envisioned her falling to us at that position in the draft. But obviously when, and I don't recall who drafted fourth. Whoever drafted ahead of us at four made their selection and there sits Arike and Gumbawale. It was a pretty quick call into the League with our selection. And obviously we thought we were, you know, quote unquote, winning the lottery that night. And it's turned out that in fact we did.
- [19:16]
Sabrina Merchant
That's funny. I feel like teams always use their full allotted time, but you actually made the call quicker than you needed to to get Hurricane.
- [19:22]
Greg Bibb
I recall. I mean, at that point it's like she's, you know, so far up our draft board in terms of where we thought she would go versus where we were. I mean, I don't know what deliberation there could have been. If I recall, it kind of, it was a nod around the room and boom, it was, here's our selection.
- [19:38]
Sabrina Merchant
And then obviously the next draft, you guys get the number two pick that turns into satu. You have a couple picks after that. I know a walk isn't playing this season, but how do you guys take that next step between all of that young talent in, you know, you obviously made the playoffs a couple years ago. You made one, your first playoff series last year. But what does it take to turn all of that aggregation of talent into the next step?
- [19:58]
Greg Bibb
Yeah, and I'll answer the question, but you know, full disclosure, obviously I'm answering it without really knowing because I haven't done it yet. Right. We, we are making progress. You know, if you kind of want to classify us, we were a top 14 last year because we finished fourth in a regular season. We made it to the semifinals. So what do we need to do to go from top four to top two to ultimately being a champion? You know, we need to retain our young talents so that the players that we've drafted, invested in, grown with, remain here as part of that long term core plan. And that's where that whole priority won this draft for us for this free agency is around retention and then two, we got to find the right pieces at the right time that obviously fit within the salary cap model to help us where we have need and efficiency to take those steps. So, you know, in some regards, it's harder now, even though we're closer than it was at the beginning, because at the beginning it was all about, let's draft, draft, draft, draft, draft. We have plenty of cap space. We can make some mistakes. And listen, we're coming from down here, so incremental gain is easy to see. Now you get to this level, it gets harder because you don't have the flexibility in terms of the cap space. You don't have the mass amount of draft picks. You're looking for specific tweaks rather than wholesale change. And the teams you're trying to catch up to are a lot better than the teams you're trying to catch when you started. So it's hard and you know, we have a plan and hopefully our plan will turn out to be the right one.
- [21:32]
Ben Pickman
You mapped out a lot there and certainly as we said in the intro, you wear a number of different hats for the Wings organization more broadly. But can you kind of then take us into your day to day? Like what is the life of a GM right now during free agency when you're able to negotiate with free agents, as you're trying to maneuver your roster and figure out some of the things that, that you described. Just take us through like a, a day for you. What is it like?
- [21:54]
Greg Bibb
So I'd say almost every day, no matter where in the calendar you want to look, there's some part of my day spent on, let's put broad umbrella, the term basketball operations. But certainly there are certain times of the year where that becomes a major part of my day. And this particular window that we're in right now I would say is almost exclusively spent on items relative to basketball operations. And obviously with under that umbrella right now it's about free agency, player personnel, roster construct, those types of things. So it's always part of my day, different parts of the year. It's a much bigger part of my day right now. It is the day in essence.
- [22:38]
Sabrina Merchant
Are there any specific memories of free agency's past that stand out to you? Any stories that stand out?
- [22:45]
Greg Bibb
Yeah, there's been some, you know, good wins and there's been some tough losses in terms of, you know, players that we thought we were going to be able to get. And we were like one of two teams and you know, we weren't the team that ended up getting the player. And you know, as an unproven young organization, in terms of Dallas, which, you know, full canders had fair number of changes in terms of coaching, coaches and head coaches and you know, lack of stability maybe in long term roster and not having established players until recently. It's been hard. I mean, you know, it's what, what are we selling against the blue bloods of the wnba? So it's taken us a minute to really articulate our message and, you know, lean into our strengths. And now thankfully we have a team that is, you could say, on the cusp of being a championship contending team. So it's easier for a player considering Dallas today to say, you know what, that could be a good place for me to go than it would have Been five years ago when, you know, the team was struggling to qualify for the playoffs, we didn't have a core group of players. You could look at the roster and say, hey, that's the group that's been here. That's the group's going to be here. And we didn't have the organizational success on the business side either, where a player would say, you know, I remember coming to Dallas and the arena was full and it was a good experience. We just didn't have those things yet. We've been building all of those. So our conversations now are different, dare I say easier, although I say easier just from our perspective, because the league as a whole, back to our earlier conversation, is more competitive, more sophisticated than ever before. And it's talked about this, I think, on previous conversations. There's 12 teams in our league. There's such an unbelievable concentration of talent. It is a unique animal. Nowhere else in sports, professional sports, will you see this kind of concentration of talent. And therefore, even though There are only 11 other teams we're competing against, it is unbelievably hard to win.
- [24:53]
Ben Pickman
Well, that's why it's so funny to me. And I think Sabrina and I have talked about this too. Like, when you see or you hear about a player who's talked to seven teams in free agency, your eight teams, you're like, that's, that's two thirds of the league. You know, like you're trying to put it in some context in the NBA and the NFL and you know, all these other sports leagues that, like, if you had one free agent, you know, of any kind of level, talking to 2/3 of the league, like, that's a lot of conversation. That's a lot of time investment. And you really have to kind of be on your P's and Q's when you are pitching that player as to why you want them as part of your organization. It's. It's a pretty unique challenge to the WNBA because of that size, as you recall.
- [25:28]
Greg Bibb
Yeah, and I think too, you know, remember, seven teams for us is 2/3 of the league. Seven teams in the NBA is, you know, a lot less percentage. The other thing, as a business now, all of our teams feel comfortable pretty much spending up to the cap. So what that results in is when you get to free agency, for the most part, the dollars that a free agent is going to be able to sign for are very similar, whether it's market A, B, C or D. And therefore, I think there's more of an inclination on the player side to have more conversations because the money's the same. Let's talk about some of the other things that aren't as apparent, and let's get into the weeds on that a little bit and really figure out what the landscape of options and opportunity are as a player.
- [26:14]
Ben Pickman
That makes a bunch of sense. You know, we kind of talked about the draft and scouting and player evaluation as it relates to player scouting. Then can you kind of take us into the life of what it is like to be on the road and scout? And I do have to ask. I did hear a story of maybe one Valentine's Day in particular that you spent some time in Starkville, Mississippi, I think it was in which basketball took precedent or priority. Can you. Could you tell that story?
- [26:39]
Greg Bibb
Listen, if you're looking for a getaway for Valentine's Day, there's no better place. Actually, I love Starkville. I think it's an unbelievable women's basketball market. But, yes, we did end up there over Valentine's Day. We were there to see Mississippi State play Missouri, and it was a year in which Tierra McCowan was a senior at Mississippi State and Sophie Cunningham was a senior at Missouri. Mississippi State. I don't remember what they ranked, but top five really, really good. Kind of the peak of. Of where they were in the last decade or so. And Missouri came in, Sophie had a great game, and Missouri upset them. But the arena is full. It's the event in town that night. It was a really cool atmosphere, and I love Starkville for that. But, yeah, probably not where outside of what we do for a living would put us in Starkville on Valentine's Day. And I, I got to have a lovely romantic dinner with our now vice president of basketball operations, Travis Charles, to celebrate that special day before seeing Mississippi State play Missouri. So it's like any job, any role, you guys have it, too. You know, there's sacrifice to what you do, and for us, part of that sacrifice. If you really want to do the job as good as you can, you can watch video, you can talk to people. There's no substitute for being in person, in venue, watching a player, because there's so many things you can see that you don't see through the lens of a camera, through a broadcast, or even looking at film. And if you can be there and also have an opportunity to see a practice, that's even better. So you just got to do the work. I haven't figured out in all the years I've done this a better way than literally getting on a plane and Going to watch players. We invest a lot of time, energy, money, resource in that. And like, as I said, we put a lot of people into that mix. And again, no process is perfect. We certainly have had our misses. But I like, if you look holistically at the job we've done over the last five or six years, I like what we've ended up with in terms of the players we drafted and the kind of careers they're having, whether that still be here or be somewhere else.
- [28:52]
Sabrina Merchant
You know, in terms of college scouting, it does seem like the just depth of talent has increased, you know, even over the last four or five years. Do you find yourself like heading to markets that you hadn't considered before or like scouting players younger than you expected? How has that evolved?
- [29:07]
Greg Bibb
I think there's more parity in women's college basketball than ever before. I think there's a lot of reasons for that. I think, you know, schools are recognizing that investing in women's basketball programs is a good investment, good use of dollars. I think the talent that's coming up through the club and high school levels and entering into the collegiate space is better than ever. And because of that, yeah, we're, you know, it's not okay. Here's the five schools we need to see this year to see 80% of the players we want to see. It's, you know, you could end up, you could end up from Poughkeepsie, New York, that's where Mary's College is located, by the way, to, you know, the Pacific Ocean and everywhere in between and by the way, over in Europe as well. Because there's so much high level talent in so many different places today. It just requires that kind of coverage.
- [29:58]
Ben Pickman
We should mention Marist College. Now, that's where you went, right? That's correct, Greg.
- [30:02]
Greg Bibb
Coincidentally, yes. It is in fact where I went.
- [30:04]
Ben Pickman
And you have a tie. I remember Maddie Segris. What were you played with her dad? Is that, is that how that story or you were friends with.
- [30:11]
Greg Bibb
I didn't play with her dad. Her dad graduated a couple years earlier than me. He, when I was at school, was an assistant coach for the men's team. Her mom was in my class in college. And then her dad also had gotten involved in some ownership of restaurants and bars in town. So many times on weekends we would find ourselves at one of his establishments. So just a lot of full circle connectivity back to the secres family. That was a hoot to kind of go through that process in drafting Matty last year and being able to reconnect with friends from a long time ago.
- [30:47]
Sabrina Merchant
This is a terrible segue. But on the subject of family and the Dallas Wings, I think you guys had the opportunity to go to a showing of the Basketball Wives TV series last year. Were you part of that trip?
- [30:59]
Greg Bibb
I did not go to that.
- [31:01]
Sabrina Merchant
I just said that's a bummer. They seem to have a great time in la.
- [31:04]
Greg Bibb
We played a. A back to back weekend, like Friday, Sunday, I think LA road trip. So we had a Saturday. The team had a Saturday off. I was actually there for the Friday game, but then I left Saturday morning. And I believe that night they filmed an episode of the show. And vast majority of our player and staff roster participated in that dinner that was filmed. And I think everyone had a great time with it.
- [31:33]
Ben Pickman
We always see your head coach, Latricia Trammell brings energy. Whether it is on that show, whether it is on the sideline in practice, all the social content that you guys put out. I think she's been one of the MVPs of the mic'd up segment over the summer. I think Sabrina would agree with that, would agree with that notion. Just as we wrap up here, you know, you kind of mentioned Travis a little bit. Can you just speak about a little more of the collaboration between you guys and kind of his journey up through, I guess, the basketball ops ranks because, you know, some teams have bigger front offices than others, some GMs lean on AGMs more than others, and it seems like you guys have a pretty close relationship. Can you just, you know, give listeners a little insight into that?
- [32:10]
Greg Bibb
Yeah, there's, in my opinion, no better vehicle for the establishment of trust than time. And Travis and I have now been working together since the team arrived in Dallas in 2016. He's one of two individuals that are still with the Wings organization today that had previously worked with the organization when it was in Tulsa. So I believe he just celebrated his 11th year with the organization, if you combine the two. And, you know, he started prior to Tulsa, I believe, in Atlanta as an intern and an equipment guy. When he. By the time he came to Dallas, I believe he was a video coordinator and handling some of the ops stuff because back then he may have been the video coordinator, but he probably also had two or three other jobs within basketball operations. That's just how we were staffed at that time. And every year it feels like I find myself saying, you know what? I think Travis deserves a bigger role. He's done a great job at whatever he has on his plate and I think he's ready and we would benefit from him having a larger role. Until now, he's the vice president of basketball operations and the assistant general manager. He is probably from a basketball operations perspective, my closest confidant. He is a sounding board. He is one of those people that certainly provides opinion and I value it. But he also will just listen. Whether that be listening to a question, trying to figure out solution to a problem, or can Lee on a bad day, just letting me venture and being okay just listening to that. He handles pretty much every aspect of the operations of the department and I don't have to even think about it. He has a couple of great young ladies that work under him. And you can kind of see the lineage developing, that he's developing them much like he's been developed. And it's. It's really exciting for me to see that now that we have this group of people in basketball operations that are growing up here. And I think whether they end up in a senior role here or a senior role somewhere else in the wnba, they're going to be really good at what they do. So yeah, Travis is. He's a guy that I would have Valentine's dinner with in Starkville, Mississippi. That's probably the best way to describe it.
- [34:34]
Ben Pickman
I was going to say that that was my takeaway as well.
- [34:38]
Sabrina Merchant
Just one last one for me. You know, going from Travis has obviously been on the wings for so very long. You guys just made it. Pretty splashy hire, in my opinion. Recently bringing in Jasmine Thomas as your director of player programs. What was it about jazz that you identified as somebody you wanted to be a part of? Dallas? How did that come along?
- [34:54]
Greg Bibb
Yeah, so again, probably in that chapter about better to be lucky than good, here's another example. Timing's everything. Maybe that's the subtitle. Obviously Jasmine, 13 year pro all star caliber player, multi time all defensive player, great career. Last year coming back from injury. You know, she is someone I've known for a long time. When she was at Duke, she interned in the Washington Mystics front office, meaning the business side, while I was the chief operating officer. And I was always impressed by her and I always stuck in back of my mind. And even though she never played for an organization that I was involved with, you know, whenever we saw each other was always hello. I was always impressed at how articulate she was, how friendly she was and also looking from afar, how well she was respected around the league. Whether that be front office people, coaches, players, officials. Just one of those people that is held in this utmost high regard. So Anyway, we decided we were going to promote our development coach, Zach Buncic, who's done a phenomenal job for us to the front of the bench. And therefore we had a development coach position open. And at the same time I've been thinking about creating a role with an organization that as far as I know doesn't exist anywhere else in our league. And it's a player programs function where, you know, our organization through this role will support players in things that have nothing to do with basketball but like career development and thinking about life after basketball, internship placement, financial literacy assistance with housing or day to day life stuff. And also at the same time starting to create the connectivity between our present and our past by establishing a alumni association that is a little trickier than most because we're going across three different organizations in three different places. So all that is swirling around in my head and I go to a, a league meeting and I run into Jasmine and on a break I go over and we do what we typically do, give each other hug, how you doing? How you doing? And I just said casually, you know, what's next for you? And at that time, so plan on playing next year. But you know, I'm at that point in my career, I'm thinking about what's out there and if the great opportunity came along, maybe it'd be time for me to hang it up because I wouldn't want to miss out on a long term opportunity just for the sake of playing one more year. I said, okay, great. And I kind of said, you know, we're thinking of, we need a development coach and we're thinking about creating this hybrid role development coach, skill development on the court, player programs off the court. And I can't think of a better person for something like that than you. So if you decide you're not going to play and you want to talk about it, let me know. And that was November. And a couple of weeks after that we connected and you know, we just started talking. It was funny, never talk much about playing. It was always about this role. And you know, one thing led to another. She came and visited. She has connectivity to Travis. She played in Atlanta when Travis was in Atlanta. They know each other well. She has connectivity to Coach Trammell through la. They know each other well. She has good relationships with a lot of the players on our team that they've played together overseas or they just hold her in the high regard I mentioned. So it's just one of those things that kind of evolved quickly because it's such a good fit and I can't tell you how excited I am to have her on our staff. I think she is going to be unbelievable in her role, both the skill development position but also more importantly this player program position, which is another example of how we're trying to lean into our player related support and initiatives. Last year we launched a mentor trip where we allowed the players to bring their mentor on a road trip. We're just constantly trying to add layers to those types of things to make this the best pace possible for our players and she's going to be a great representative of that.
- [38:55]
Ben Pickman
You know, we should say, you know, free agency is obviously going on right now, but certainly I think that was one of the biggest moves of pre agency. Certainly yes, she's retiring, but got a lot of attention and a lot of buzz for a lot of the reasons that Greg just mapped out because of what she can bring to the franchise both in the short term and in the long term. You know Greg, I think just to wrap it up, we learned a lot about what life as a GM is like and certainly what would be in the Dallas Wings book if we were writing it right now. And so with free agency going on and the draft ongoing, we'll see who else gets added. But best of luck the rest of the off season and looking forward to talking down the line. And thanks again for joining the Athletic Women's Basketball Show. It's great to have you on.
- [39:31]
Greg Bibb
Thank you for having me and thank you for your continued support and coverage of our great sport.
- [39:36]
Ben Pickman
Thanks again to Greg for joining us and for everybody listening. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow along@the athletic.com for all your free agency and women's college basketball stories that we continue to put out on the site. Zena and our team will be back on Monday breaking down another busy stretch in the college game and seeing what moves end up up going down. This is Ben Pickman for the Athletic. Until next time everybody. Have a great weekend.
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- [41:25]
Greg Bibb
Acast powers the world's best podcasts.
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Wayfair
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- [41:33]
Greg Bibb
Hey guys.
- [41:33]
Sabrina Merchant
Welcome to Giggly Squad, a place where we make fun of everything but most importantly ourselves.
- [41:38]
Greg Bibb
I'm Paige Desorbo.
- [41:39]
Sabrina Merchant
I'm Hannah Burner. Welcome to the squad. Giggly Squad started on Summer House when we were giggling during an inappropriate time.
- [41:46]
Greg Bibb
But of course we can't be managed.
- [41:48]
Sabrina Merchant
So we decided to start this podcast. To continue giggling.
- [41:51]
Greg Bibb
We will make fun of pop culture news.
- [41:53]
Sabrina Merchant
We're watching fashion trends pep talks where we give advice, mental health moments and games and guests. Listen to Giggly Squad on Acast or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [42:04]
Greg Bibb
Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere.
- [42:10]
Sabrina Merchant
Acast.com.