The Washington Mystics general manager will be on his second Olympic team as an assistant coach.
On Monday, USA Basketball announced the members of its women’s national team assistant coaching staff for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France. Minnesota Lynx Head Coach Cheryl Reeve will be Team USA’s head coach. In addition, Washington Mystics General Manager Mike Thibault was named as an assistant coach to the squad. The announcement isn’t a surprise because Thibault was on Team USA’s coaching staff for the 2022 FIBA Women’s World Cup and most recently, the FIBA Olympic Women’s Qualifying Tournament last week.
Thibault will be serving on his second Olympic team after being an assistant coach for Team USA in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. The other assistant coaches are Texas A&M women’s head coach Joni Taylor and Duke women’s head coach Kara Lawson, whom DMV residents are very familiar with. She was a former TV color analyst for the Washington Wizards and a former WNBA player. Though Lawson played for the Mystics later in her career, she spent most of her playing career with the Sacramento Monarchs and Connecticut Sun.
In a statement, USAB CEO Jim Tooley said the following.
After winning the gold in Sydney, it’s exciting to have Mike, Kara and Joni once again joining Cheryl and the USA Women’s National Team for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Our staff has decades of diverse coaching experience and I’m looking forward to watching them lead our women’s team with the goal of winning an eighth consecutive Olympic gold medal.
The women’s Olympic basketball tournament will be from July 27 to Aug. 11.