Cheryl Reeve is not known for giving players a free pass. Throughout her Hall of Fame coaching career, she has built a reputation for demanding excellence, obsessing over details, and holding even her biggest stars accountable. But, when it comes to Olivia Miles, Reeve appears willing to make an exception that she has rarely, if ever, made before. 

Following the Minnesota Lynx’s most recent game against the Seattle Storm, Reeve admitted that she does not coach Miles’ passing at all.

“A lot of times she’ll say, ‘What do you want me to look for?’ And I say, ‘Whatever your instincts tell you is there,’” Reeve said in a postgame press conference clip shared by basketball videographer Vanshay on X. “I don’t coach her passing at all. I try to stay out of the way of that. We try to play call to feature some of the things that we know she’s going to find. She just has an incredible, incredible gift on the instincts of who’s open, when they’re open, and she sees it before everybody else.”

“And so timing is so crucial. If you’ve got a shooter open, that by the time it touches their fingers, they can let it go. Because if you’re a tick late, defender has a chance to get back to that shot, looks different, pick-and-roll game, etc. It’s a gift. And that’s what we’ve talked about. It’s a generational gift. You just don’t see it very often. And obviously she makes things easier for her teammates,” she added.

This is a level of creative freedom that Reeve rarely extends to any player, let alone a rookie who is still in the earliest weeks of her professional career. She has said herself that “great players want to be coached,” and that coaches “would be doing them a disservice” if they simply stepped back and let a player’s own belief carry them. But maybe Olivia Miles is just another level of talent entirely, the kind that comes along so rarely that even the most demanding coaches recognize when their job is not to instruct, but simply to not interfere. 

Instead of trying to teach or alter that part of Miles’ game, Reeve is simply taking a more strategic approach. Rather than directing what Miles should see, the Lynx are designing situations that allow her instincts to flourish. 

“We try to play call to feature some of the things that we know she’s going to find. She just has an incredible gift on the instincts of who’s open when they’re open, just sees it before everybody else,” Reeve explained. In other words, the focus is not on changing how Miles sees the floor, but on creating opportunities for her to do what she already does naturally at an elite level.

One part of being a great coach is knowing when something is already right and resisting the urge to change it simply for the sake of coaching. So far, everything Reeve has done with Olivia Miles appears to be working perfectly. The rookie has quickly become the engine of Minnesota’s offense, and the results speak for themselves. The Lynx currently sit atop the league with a 9-2 record, while Miles is putting together a remarkable debut campaign, averaging 17.2 points, 6.4 assists, 5.0 rebounds, and 1.5 steals per game.

She recently set a new WNBA rookie record for most three-pointers made in a game, knocking down eight against the Golden State Valkyries and surpassing Caitlin Clark’s previous mark of seven. Earlier this season, she tied Clark as the fastest player in WNBA history to reach 100 points and 40 assists to begin a career. Those are not records players stumble into by accident. They are proof that she is the real deal.

Interestingly enough, Courtney Williams saw this coming almost immediately. After just one day of practice alongside Miles, Williams confidently predicted, “She’s gonna be a problem.” Days later, after Olivia Miles led the Lynx with 21 points in their season-opening game against the Atlanta Dream. And Williams found herself expressing a similar sentiment to the one Reeve is expressing now. “I said, ‘Look, let me move out your way, let you do what you do best.'” Williams stated, revealing that she consciously stepped aside during the game and allowed Miles to take control.

And obviously, as Reeve also explained during this interview, “Miles makes things easier for her teammates.” As Reeve simply put it, her passing, timing, and ability to anticipate openings before anyone else sees them make up a rare quality that elevates everyone around her. For Reeve, there is only one way to describe it. “It’s a gift. It’s a generational gift.”

Olivia Miles Explains the Secret Behind Her Elite Court Vision

Just like coach Cheryl Reeve said, Olivia Miles has been absolutely masterful with her passing this season. The flair and vision with which she delivers the ball is something the WNBA has not seen from a rookie in years. And it has shown up in the numbers. Miles is currently averaging 6.4 assists per game, a figure that places her near the very top of the WNBA leaderboards.

During the postgame press conference following Minnesota’s most recent game against the Seattle Storm, Olivia Miles was asked to break down the reads she makes before deciding where the ball needs to go. But as Reeve has repeatedly suggested, a lot of what Miles does simply appears to be built into her game. “That’s hard. It’s just instinct and repetition,” Miles said. “Reading Tshi’s defender or my big man’s defender, reading low defenders. I don’t know. I just go out there and I play basketball.”

Natasha Howard certainly sees things a little differently. Speaking alongside Miles during the same postgame press conference, Howard described her as a true point guard who understands the game at a high level. “It’s really fun when you have a true point guard that understands the game, that reads the game very well before she even gets the ball.”

But whether Olivia Miles’ performances are the result of an exceptionally deep understanding of the game, pure instinct, or some combination of both, the outcome remains the same. She consistently gets the job done, and in the process, makes life easier for everyone around her. As Howard put it, “It’s easy. She makes my job easy.”