Feb. 08--Natalie Nakase knew there would be doubters.
Her basketball dreams have been shrouded in skepticism since her mom asked her as a child when she might be done with the sport so she could start focusing on becoming a Laker Girl.
As a speck of a point guard who barely cleared 5 feet in high school, she was called "Nat the Gnat."
The disbelievers wouldn't disperse even after she became a three-year starter at UCLA and played professionally for three years until torn knee cartilage forced her to pursue coaching.
Now, as the Clippers' assistant video coordinator, the naysaying is harder to take. She answered her phone in July and heard her father's voice.
"What is this I'm reading?" asked Gary Nakase, referring to a newspaper article. "Now, all of a sudden you want to be an NBA head coach? This is what you're publicly saying?"
"I wish I was more open to my players," she said. "I was like, 'OK, you're going to do your job, you're going to do that, whatever, boom, I'll see you at practice.' Watching Doc, you have to open yourself too; you have to open your heart and open your life to them as well and show that you care about them."
Nakase returned to Southern California in the summer of 2012 after being unable to convince executives from the Broncos to let her have a say in the roster.
A friend invited her to attend a coaches clinic that September, which excited Nakase until she discovered it was a youth coaches clinic.
Fortunately for her, the man running the clinic was Dave Severns, the Clippers' assistant player skills coach. Severns enlisted Nakase as his demonstrator because of her ballhandling skills and later granted her request to watch the Clippers practice so she could learn about the workout routines of Griffin and Chris Paul.
Like she had in Japan, Nakase kept showing up, day after day, until the Clippers asked her what she did since she obviously had so much free time. That's when she told them she wanted to work in video because it was the perfect entry-level NBA job.
At practice one day, then-Coach Vinny Del Negro snatched her notepad to see what she was writing. "Luckily," Nakase said, "I was taking really good notes."
Del Negro hired Nakase as an unpaid video intern and Rivers retained her when he succeeded Del Negro in the summer of 2013. Before this season, Rivers promoted her to her current title and gave her a salary.
Nakase eagerly shuffles from spot to spot on the Clippers' practice court, playing defense, setting screens or encouraging DeAndre Jordan while he works on his free throws.
"We all respect her on this team," Jordan said. "She has great insight and we value her opinions because she does some of our scouts, so she definitely knows her stuff."
Nakase has increased her insight into casual coaches' banter by sitting in on pre-practice meetings with Rivers and his assistants, staying mindful of Bob Hill's advice to always prepare for the next opportunity.
"She's very honest," Rivers said. "She's not worried about telling a guy that outweighs her by 200 pounds and makes whatever amount more than her the truth, and I think that's a great quality."
Nakase insists she's not trying to break racial or gender barriers like San Antonio's Becky Hammon, the first female NBA assistant coach; she just wants to be a quality coach.
"I really feel it's whether I'm qualified or not," Nakase said.
Sometimes showing you belong takes standing up to your own father when he doesn't think your dreams are realistic.
"I started to realize my No. 1 fan, my No. 1 everything, my best friend didn't believe in my goal, but I had to be OK with that and turn it into motivation," Nakase said. "Now I've realized that you have to believe in yourself; that's it, that's the only person. You're going to have people who are going to doubt you."
ben.bolch@latimes.com
Twitter: @latbbolch
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