Basketball On The Internet.

WHEN is an assistant ready to step into a head coach role? It's always a gamble but what club "moves on" a highly-successful head coach to replace him with a prospect who most importantly fills a gender-specific requirement? Adelaide Lightning did, and yesterday its experiment with Nat Hurst ended when she was sacked from her WNBL role.

Yes, of course her departure was by "mutual agreement" but the fact remains Lightning - which will be without an owner at season's end - is a victim of its own haste and chase of "gender equality" when it asked Chris Lucas to prematurely step away from his successful second run with the club.

Revealing and reinforcing again the typically Adelaide-trait of disrespecting its own, Lucas immediately was snapped up by the then defending-champion Melbourne Boomers. He steered them the distance in consecutive semi final series and currently is leading the program at league debutante Geelong United.

A record seven-time WNBL champion as a player and with some NBL1 coaching experience, Hurst was an ideal fit as his assistant coach. Yet after only two years, Adelaide was overly anxious to elevate her to the top job.

It shafted Lucas and now, after consecutive seasons of seventh-place finishes with records of 5-16 and 8-13, Hurst rightly was under the pump to move Lightning up the ladder in her third season.

Considering Adelaide boasts two Paris Olympians in Steph Talbot and Izzy Borlase, two quality imports in Brianna Turner and Japreece Dean, and the burgeoning talent of Isabelle Bourne as its starting quintet - arguably as good a starting five as any in the league - a 2-6 return and the now customary seventh-place clearly wore thin.

Losing for a second time to the debutante Geelong last round was the straw that finally broke the camel's back but again shone a light on Adelaide's decision - albeit the decision of the club's previous "woke" management - to rush Hurst into the role was a miscalculation.

Opening this season with losses to Bendigo and Perth were to be expected. But squandering a double-digit lead in its loss to Geelong, then leading Townsville 40-20 at halftime and scoring only two and five in the next two quarters in a 47-53 loss was excruciating.

Losing on the last shot to Townsville in their next meeting in Adelaide was heart-breaking and the second defeat at Geelong's hands and by double figures meant two impressive wins over Sydney and Southside ultimately counted for nought. 

Could Hurst have become a quality WNBL coach?

Absolutely. But sadly the truth of both the WNBL and NBL is the "once bitten, twice shy" adage does seem to apply so we most likely will never truly know.

That she wasn't ready was obvious, just as her elevated assistant Matthew Clarke now finds himself in the deep end. The Lightning is now caught in another sink or swim situation, the club on the one hand seeking on-court direction and an off-court future.

It is perilous times again for this once great sporting club, though much of it is of its own making.