But the past hasn't entirely gone away.
Last week, former Mercury head coach Nikki Blue filed a federal lawsuit against the Mercury, claiming the team discriminated against her because she is Black. A former college standout and WNBA player, the 41-year-old Blue served as the interim head coach for 28 games in 2023 — the Mercury went 7-21 in that span — after the team fired head coach Vanessa Nygaard. Blue says she was never given serious consideration for the full-time gig, which went to Nate Tibbetts. Blue's complaint notes that Tibbetts is a white man who was paid a salary more than four times what she had been making.
Blue now serves as an assistant coach for the University of Southern California women's basketball team.
The lawsuit excavates some sore Mercury history, particularly the rift between Taurasi and former Mercury guard Skylar Diggins. It's also the fifth lawsuit brought against the Suns or Mercury — both of which Mat Ishbia owns — by a client of Phoenix attorney Sheree Wright. Both organizations have sought to discredit Wright in response to her clients' suits, pointing out that she has been the subject of discipline by the State Bar of Arizona.
Indeed, a statement from Suns and Mercury senior vice president of communications Stacey Mitch hit those now-familiar notes:
“This is the fifth lawsuit brought against the organization by Sheree Wright, an attorney who has been disciplined twice by the Supreme Court of Arizona for committing numerous violations of the rules of professional conduct — including making false and unsupported allegations of racial bias against a judge.However, Wright told Phoenix New Times by phone that she is only local counsel for Blue in the case and that Blue's complaint was written by her co-counsel, New York labor attorney Marjorie Mesidor.
"Like Ms. Wright’s other cases, this case is completely meritless. Ms. Blue was interviewed and considered for the head coach position, but didn’t get the position based on her performance as interim head coach, as well as her limited professional coaching experience.
"Sheree Wright’s continued abuse of the legal system for financial gain is unethical.”
“This lawsuit is not just about one woman’s career — it’s about the pervasive, institutional disrespect for Black women in sports leadership," Mesidor's law firm wrote in a press release.
Blue is seeking several types of monetary damages but is also demanding to be placed back in the position she would have had if not for the alleged discrimination she suffered — essentially, suing to get the head coaching job back. However, even if a federal judge and jury agree with her claims, such a maneuver would be unprecedented in pro sports and it would seem unlikely that Blue will ever coach for the Mercury again.
Mercury players Diana Taurasi (left) and Skylar Diggins (right) had a falling out between 2022 and 2023, which former coach Nikki Blue says played a role in her not getting the full-time head coaching job.
Christian Petersen/Getty Images
Fallout from a falling-out
Blue's suit claims she was underpaid and under-supported during her time coaching with the Mercury, a stint which began as an assistant to Nygaard in 2022 and ended when she was fired as head coach in October 2023. Though her complaint does not directly attribute any racial animus to anyone with the team, it claims that Blue's treatment was due to her race.Most of the allegations in Blue's complaint stem from her short stay as interim head coach in 2023. She said the Suns paid her a salary of $250,000 a year. That was $175,000 less than the team paid Nygaard, who is white. The complaint also notes that Tibbetts — whom the complaint notes had no coaching experience in the WNBA, though he had coached in the NBA — was paid more than $1 million a year to succeed her.
Blue claims that she was never given any benchmarks to shoot for in order to earn the full-time job, despite asking for them on numerous occasions. She also says she was blindsided by the hiring of Nick U'Ren in 2023 as the team's new general manager, despite coaches being "normally part of the hiring process" for GMs. However, that claim is at odds with common practice in most professional sports leagues, in which new owners and GMs tend to pick their preferred coaches rather than the other way around.
Blue says she suffered other slights: not being included in an announcement about Phoenix hosting the WNBA All-Star Game in 2024 and not being given a role to play in the celebration of Taurasi breaking the league scoring record. She also accuses team management of sandbagging her chances of on-court success by not giving her a competitive roster.
The former coach picks a particular bone when it comes to Diggins' status on the team. When Blue was an assistant in 2022, Diggins and Taurasi were caught having a heated disagreement during a timeout. The two stars fell out, and when Diggins went on maternal leave after a pregnancy in early 2023, Blue says the team made sure she would never return to the court, in order to placate Taurasi. Blue claims that then-GM Jim Pitman told her that “Skylar will never wear a Phoenix Mercury uniform again.”
That saga played out in news reports at the time, with Diggins claiming she was locked out of team facilities while on leave, a claim Blue's lawsuit repeats. Diggins ultimately missed the entirety of the 2023 season and signed with the Seattle Storm in 2024. However, Blue's lawsuit claims that the Mercury sought to trade Diggins while she was on leave but that team executives were frustrated that Blue wouldn't help the team contact her to facilitate a deal. (Notably, Diggins said earlier this year that she would have appreciated someone contacting her during the saga.) Blue's complaint says she complained to management that Diggins "was being treated unfairly due to her pregnancy."
By refusing to bring Diggins back during 2023, Blue says, the team set her up to fail. Though even Blue's complaint makes it clear the team's actions regarding Diggins were mostly about keeping Taurasi happy, the complaint claims that the decision to keep Diggins from the team "was, without question, a decision designed to make Ms. Blue fail."
Former Mercury coach Nikki Blue says team CEO Josh Bartelstein (right) asked her only two questions in her second interview for the full-time job before leaving.
Kevin Hurley
A sham hiring process?
Blue says Mercury executives repeatedly told her she would be a serious candidate for the permanent job beyond the 2023 season. However, the complaint says that in the late summer of 2023, Blue caught wind that U'Ren had told Taurasi that he planned to "bring in an NBA guy" as the next coach. (The chain of custody of that information is a bit tortured. Per the complaint, "a staff member told Ms. Blue that Mr. U’Ren told Ms. Taurasi" about the intention to hire someone else.) When confronted, the complaint says, U'Ren initially denied saying it before admitting that "something" was said and apologizing.The complaint says Blue participated in two rounds of interviews for the permanent job, including a second-round interview that team CEO Josh Bartelstein left after a couple of questions. Blue claims that during this process, she learned that the team had attempted to tamper with player Jewell Lloyd, who was under contract with the Seattle Storm. Blue's complaint does not specifically say how she learned that information or who was responsible for the alleged infraction.
In October 2023, Blue learned from U'Ren that she did not get the full-time job and that Tibbetts would be hired. (Though Mesidor's press release claims Blue "was abruptly fired" after "voic(ing) concerns about unequal treatment," the interview process lasted several weeks.) Blue says she took the news calmly but communicated that she did not feel she was given a fair chance. That same day, the complaint says, "three individuals told Ms. Blue that Mr. U’Ren portrayed Ms. Blue as being loud and angry during the conversation," which is an "offensive and a stereotypical trope that has been used to describe Black women for centuries."
Blue is suing under Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which "prohibits disparate treatment in employment on the basis of race." She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages and is also asking the court to require that the Mercury place her "in the position she would have occupied but for (the team's) discriminatory treatment, and to make her whole for all earnings she would have received."
It doesn't appear that any pro sports coach has ever successfully sued to regain their job, though a high school coach accomplished that feat two years ago.
