Raptors Assistant Discusses Transitioning from WNBA & Why He Joined Toronto

Toronto Raptors assistant coach James Wade was initially nervous when he left the WNBA for the NBA, but says the coaching has been very similar

When Darko Rajaković began building out his coaching staff for the Toronto Raptors this season he was looking for something different. He was essentially given a blank slate by the Raptors who decided to part ways with all but one coach from the previous regime.

Where do you look when you’ve got nearly a dozen spots to fill?

Everywhere.

“Different coaches bring in different perspectives in our meetings in preparation for the games,” Rajaković said on the topic of coaching diversity. “Obviously they have different experiences so it’s always fresh and good for me to hear something different or something new.”

Maybe the most unusual experience of the group is the man in charge of analytics for Toronto, James Wade, the 48-year-old former head coach and general manager of the WNBA’s Chicago Sky.

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For Wade, the Raptors job essentially fell into his lap, he joked Friday following practice. He hadn’t been looking to leave the WNBA but a brief phone call with Raptors president and vice-chairman Masai Ujiri back when Wade was initially hired as the Sky’s general manager sparked a relationship between the two men. At the time, Wade had been looking for advice on how to become a successful general manager in the basketball world. What he hadn’t realized was the man on the other end of the phone would one day become his boss.

“This was never an aspiration for me,” said Wade who maintains he prefers to take life one day at a time. “When the opportunity (to join the Raptors staff) came I was waiting on somebody close to me to tell me I couldn’t do it, and everybody was ‘holy crap, you gotta do it.’”

Wade knew what Toronto was all about before he signed up. He’d been in the city just a few months earlier, coaching the Sky during the WNBA’s preseason game in Toronto. It was then he really discovered how incredible Toronto, particularly in the summer, can be.

Since then, he’s been all about the Raptors, a transition he admitted was initially nerve-racking. Sure, he’d coached Candice Parker, one of the greatest WNBA players ever, but as Wade will admit, the NBA remains the pinnacle of the basketball world with more resources than anywhere else.

It turns out, though, the coaching is pretty similar.

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“I told myself it was different but as you get to meet these guys and coach these guys and talk to these guys, it’s not really different,” Wade said. “One of the other things is I’m throwing the ball up above the backboard and they’re catching it and dunking it. Other than that, the personalities and the talent and the buy-in into the game and the love for the game is all the same.”

Like Rajaković, Wade sees the merits of having a diverse staff. Toronto’s built a group with experience spanning the world from overseas coaching experience, G League time, college coaching duties, and, with Wade, plenty of women’s experience.

“There’s a reason for the colors in a rainbow,” Wade said of diversity. “All the colors are different and they complement each other and when things are just too white or too black, you don’t have any room for growth, but I think everybody here is open-minded and trying to grow in the same direction and I think that’s the most important thing.”

The players seem to agree.

“Basketball is different everywhere you play it and they come out here and give us their wisdom and we take those details and apply it to the court,” said Scottie Barnes. “They know what they’re talking about.”

For Rajaković, a first-time NBA head coach, that’s going to be crucial. It’s clear he relies heavily on his assistants, asking them to push back on him and come to him with fresh new ideas. For a team that has, for better or for worse, been at the forefront of some of the league’s most innovative new ideas, this diversity can only help Toronto find whatever is coming next. 

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