Phoenix Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts ‘loves’ Alyssa Thomas is WNBA’s biggest trash talker

Phoenix Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts has no problem at all with his superstar Alyssa Thomas’ knack for trash talking. In fact, he’s embraced the role Thomas has taken on during her first season in the desert.

Tibbetts touched on Thomas’ basketball-adjacent skill after Sabreena Merchant and Ben Pickman of The Athletic conducted a series of anonymous WNBA player polls, wherein Thomas took the top spot as the league’s biggest trash talker.

Merchant and Pickman received 33 responses from players around the league, and 13 of those players voted for Thomas.

“Yeah, I mean, I love it,” Tibbetts said of Thomas’ trash talking when he joined Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo on Tuesday. “I think that’s who she is. I want her to be competitive. She’s not afraid of anything or anybody. And you need those players on your team if you’re going to be a great team, and she completely sets the tone with that.”

Second-place finisher Courtney Williams of the Minnesota Lynx received five votes, while third-place finisher Marina Mabrey of the Connecticut Sun took four votes.

Seattle Storm guard and former Mercury All-Star Skylar Diggins received two votes, while Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark and Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese each tallied a single vote.

Past Mercury players Sophie Cunningham and Natasha Cloud, plus current players Kahleah Copper and Satou Sabally each received a single vote.

Alyssa Thomas’ numbers back up the Mercury All-Star’s trash talk

Thomas has been able to back up her trash talking through her play on the court. In addition to being a WNBA All-Star, Thomas was named WNBA Player of the Week for the Western Conference for the week of July 3 to July 13 and has guided the Mercury to the third-best record in the league through the first half of the season.

Thomas is averaging 15.2 points while shooting a career-best 51.7% from the field.

She is also averaging a career-high and league-leading 9.5 assists to go with 7.3 rebounds and 1.4 steals.

“I mean, the great thing about (Thomas) is her teams have won, and she kept telling me like, ‘Coach, we’re going to be good. We’re going to be good.’ And I wanted to believe her,” Tibbetts said.

“But she just sets a precedent of how we’re going to play, a toughness. Her game isn’t flashy when people look at it in a certain way now shooting from 35 feet, but all she does is win and all she cares about is competing each and every night, and she has really set the tone for that.”

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