Former Las Vegas Aces coach Bill Laimbeer says coaching career is over but won't rule out future in basketball

Although Bill Laimbeer won't entirely rule out a role in basketball in the future, the former Las Vegas Aces coach said Saturday that he is sure about one thing.

«I'm not ever going to coach again,» Laimbeer said in a video call with media from Las Vegas before the Aces hosted Phoenix. «I just don't have that kind of energy. I don't have that willpower. It's an all-consuming thing.

»Whether I participate in basketball going forward, I don't know. It's too early to tell. I just had six months off. I've never spent a summer at my farm in Michigan. So I'm looking forward to that. What the future holds, I don't really have a solid handle on right now. I'm having fun. I'm relaxed."

Laimbeer, who celebrated his 65th birthday on Thursday, played in the NBA from 1980-81 to 1993-94, spending all but his first two seasons with the Detroit Pistons. In 2002, he took over as head coach of the WNBA's Detroit Shock during the season, and led the team to the first of three WNBA titles in 2003; the Shock also won the championship in 2006 and 2008.

He stayed with the Shock until leaving early in the 2009 season and taking an assistant's job with the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves. He returned to the WNBA as a head coach with the New York Liberty from 2012 to 2017.

When the San Antonio franchise relocated to Las Vegas starting in the 2018 season, Laimbeer took over the team newly named the Aces as coach and led them the past four seasons. That included a trip to the 2020 WNBA Finals.

The Aces had the second-best record in the WNBA last season but lost in the semifinals to Phoenix. Laimbeer said he was ready then to leave coaching but thought he would need to come back for 2022.

«It was an easy decision, but it was hard to implement,»