The W Dozen, 2020 Week 2: Panic? at the Bubble
12 items, issues, events and quirks from around the WNBA which have piqued my interest this week
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1. Great Expectations, Hard Times: A Tale of Two Cities
Unlike some seasons, it only took four games apiece for the WNBA bubble to run out of undefeated teams. Given the increased randomness of the season created by the strange circumstances everyone's coping with, and the various teams disrupted by injury, absence and illness, perhaps that's not surprising. However, at time of writing, we do have two teams still searching for their first win. And in a season reduced to 22 games per team, each game is worth around 50% more than in recent previous years. So is it time to panic?
If you're a fan of the New York Liberty and had any designs on a decent 2020 season, then probably yes. Sadly, the nasty turned ankle that Sabrina Ionescu suffered on Friday night when she stepped on Betnijah Laney's foot - later diagnosed as a Grade 3 sprain - is going to take her out for several weeks at a minimum, and potentially the remainder of the season. That not only robs us all of seeing her perform and develop over her rookie season, but takes away (arguably) the best player from an already-poor team. We'd already seen Ionescu produce a 33 point/7 rebound/7 assist performance in a game where her team got blown out, and several more were on the cards. Kia Nurse has been battling her own ankle injury and with seven rookies on the roster joining a new head coach trying to install a new system there were always going to be growing pains. They look messy and sloppy, and were always expecting to use this year as a development season anyway. By the way, the worst record in league history is Tulsa's 3-31 from 2011, just in case it should become relevant. In percentage terms, 2-20 would be fractionally better.
Photo credit: Stephen Gosling/NBAE via Getty Images
Meanwhile, over in the Connecticut Sun corner of the bubble, expectations were higher, but the current win total is identical. However, maybe those expectations were unrealistic. Their success last year was built almost entirely on their starting group, with minimal support from a weak bench. From that starting five, only two players remain. Courtney Williams was traded to Atlanta (exactly who forced that move or decided it had to happen depends on whom you ask), Shekinna Stricklen went to the Dream as well as a free agent, and then - most crucially - star center Jonquel Jones opted out of the 2020 season. Even with the prize addition of DeWanna Bonner in a sign-and-trade deal, there was always more going out than there was coming in.
Bonner's produced some impressive numbers in the opening few games, and Alyssa Thomas started the season looking like an MVP candidate, but beyond that positive signs have been few and far between. No one else has done anything much to support the star frontcourt pair. Jasmine Thomas has been quiet at the point guard spot, and fellow starters Bria Holmes and Brionna Jones - bar Jones’s 18-point first-half on Tuesday night - have essentially failed to step up and make the most of their increased opportunities. Briann January, the main addition in the Williams trade, has been unavailable due to a positive Covid-19 test and the bench has been just as bad as last year, despite significant turnover in composition.
There are other worrying elements, too. Bonner and Alyssa Thomas have played heavy minutes because Curt Miller clearly doesn't trust his bench, and Thomas in particular already looked like she was wearing down. The desperation to stick with the few effective players is understandable when searching for a win, but will ultimately backfire if Miller runs them into the ground. They’re also 79-106 in fourth-quarters so far, suggesting they’re wearing down within games. It's early to take anything from statistics, but if you ignore the Liberty then the Sun have far and away the worst eFG% and True Shooting percentage in the league. Perhaps they’ll find their range and move closer to the middle of the pack as the season progresses, or perhaps this is just their level. The return of January, a 38% career shooter from three-point range, would help, but not necessarily enough. Someone has to start making some shots. And even beyond all of that, as a result of the Bonner trade, the Sun don't own their own 2021 first-round pick. So dropping into the lottery and declaring this a lost season wouldn't have the usual benefits.
All of that said, the Sun faithful probably shouldn't throw their hands up just yet. The imminent arrival of January should be a positive, and the chemistry we've already seen between Bonner and Thomas should help them win some games along the way. Plus with no home-court advantage, sneaking into 8th in the standings isn't a lot different from finishing 5th this year, and 8th is certainly still within their reach. But maybe the rocky start will have lowered expectations for Connecticut in 2020 down to more realistic levels.
2. Expect the Expected
The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Similarly, the best predictor of future success, is past success. So why are coaches who've proven themselves in this league over and over and over again underestimated so frequently? Having a good season or two, maybe even winning a Coach of the Year award or reaching the Finals, maybe even winning a title - this is not the same as proving repeatedly that you can build a competitive team from virtually whatever raw materials you've been presented with. Enter Mike Thibault and Cheryl Reeve.
Photo credit: Ned Dishman/NBAE via GettyImages
Thibault has had one season in the last seventeen years - one in seventeen! - where the WNBA team he was coaching won fewer than 16 games. That was when he went 13-21 in 2013 in Washington, and given that much of the season was devoted to developing a 20-year-old rookie called Emma Meesseman, it worked out pretty well in later years. So even if you weren't paying attention to how much talent the 2020 Mystics still had after losing Delle Donne, Charles, Cloud, Toliver, Sanders et al, you should've believed in Mike. They were never going to be bad.
Reeve has a different kind of resume from Thibault, partly because she's almost always had at least one genuine star player on her team - often several - and therefore hasn't been forced to prove herself with as many different types of roster. But since a rocky opening year in Minnesota where the Lynx went 13-21, they've always won at least 18 games, and they've never been outside the top half of the league in defensive rating, only falling outside the top-four once. She may have been handed some elite offensive talent, but those numbers were achieved with a lot of players who had mediocre-at-best defensive reputations before arriving in Minnesota. The groups always came together.
All of which is to say - we should not be surprised that the Mystics and Lynx have started the season impressively. Coaching matters. Coaching especially matters when players are dropping out all over the place and teams have to adapt at short notice and change their plans under difficult circumstances. Don't forget what history tells you, especially when history has told you it repeatedly.
3. Say what now?
We all understand that this has been a difficult season for everybody. Even beyond the players and team officials, broadcasters are having to work games from home and with only digital access to the team personnel. All of that said, can we try to be a little more accurate with the names?
I'm not going to call out anyone in particular, but if you’ve been watching the games and know the league yourself you’ll know who the primary culprits are. And while some names might be tricky to pronounce, and a few players could be hard to recognise in an instant on a TV screen, there are limits. Names that don't exist should be avoided, as should crediting baskets to players on the other team, or teams that aren't even involved in that particular game. Saying that one team got the ball back as the result of the possession arrow - a rule that doesn't exist in this league - isn't great either. Nor is using the nicknames of NBA teams rather than WNBA teams.
If all this stuff only happened occasionally we'd laugh about it, accept that we all make mistakes, and move on. Debbie Antonelli suggested Sophie Cunningham had replaced Lindsay Allen in the starting lineup - difficult, considering they play for different franchises - and then almost immediately realised her mistake and corrected it. That's how you should do it, and what you’d expect from one of our better analysts who makes few errors.
However, on a general level there are far too many of these mistakes. It makes the broadcasts - and consequently the league - look amateurish to dedicated fans and can confuse people less familiar with the WNBA. Then there are the graphics we see during games, which have been littered with errors forever. Like...
It's embarrassing. Do better.
4. Playing Above the Rim
For obvious reasons, goaltending is a rare call in the WNBA. But one play last week made me think about the possibility, along with the person who may or may not have committed it:
The refs didn't call it, and you can understand why they'd barely even think about the possibility. The only WNBA goaltend that came to mind for me was by Sylvia Fowles, and there's even video (but be warned, she got hurt achieving it, so watch at your own risk):
After some investigation (and some help - thank you, anonymous assistant), the total number of goaltending calls in WNBA history is definitely in double-digits, but barely. Fowles herself has at least four. But no one has been called for goaltending in the WNBA, at either end of the floor, in nearly six years.
Impressive, or just scary for the rest of the league, that the closest may have come from someone playing their second game since returning from a torn Achilles.
5. Double Trouble
Talking of quirky little rules...
The officials eventually decided this was a double-foul, but not - as the play-by-play details initially stated - on Moriah Jefferson and Kayla McBride. Instead it was on McBride (the driver) and Bella Alarie (coming in from the side). Which means they probably didn't apply this rule:
But actually this one:
All of this is to say that part of me wishes that officials would use variants of the first rule more often (or be allowed to by the rules and their overseers). We know that referees aren't perfect and make mistakes. But why can't they just say "we don't know" or "we disagree" more often, and have it be accepted? The worst officiating happens when refs appear to guess. Obviously, sometimes they use their instincts or experience to guide their decisions, but the calls I hate are when they seem to anticipate what’s going to happen without actually seeing it. We should encourage them to just not be sure sometimes (and without having a vast amount of endless replay reviews to double-check). An extra jump ball or two while Bill Laimbeer looks horrified on the sidelines would not be the end of the world.
6. Passes to make you pass out
I literally just have "What a ludicrous pass" written in my notes next to this:
I've said it many times before, but it's almost unfair that one of the most gifted scorers of all time also possesses extraordinary passing vision. Diana Taurasi has that rare basketball gene that lets her see passes that other people wouldn't even contemplate. On this one, watch how her head twitches left before she even receives the ball, clocking that Sophie Cunningham has leaked out and is ahead of the pack. That lets her throw the pass the instant she gets the ball, without having to check where Cunningham is. Gorgeous.
This one from Leilani Mitchell is fantastic as well. Thrown to anticipatory space, because it's the only way she can get it to her teammate, and leads Hines-Allen directly in for the layup.
7, 8 and 9. Lineup Minutiae, Week 2
As I mentioned she might in last week's column, Sandy Brondello appears to be picking her fifth starter out of a hat each night for Phoenix. Sophie Cunningham, Shatori Walker-Kimbrough and Nia Coffey have all had turns. Based on her production so far, Bria Hartley probably won't want to start, because Sixth Woman of the Year is now worth $5,150, up from zero in the league's previous Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Brian Agler is shifting things around on a nightly basis as well, utilizing the positional versatility of Satou Sabally to enable those moves for Dallas. Astou Ndour, Isabelle Harrison and Kayla Thornton have all started or come off the bench depending on the game, with Sabally switching from the 3 to the 4 as necessary depending on who else plays. Thornton is the designated wing stopper if required - she was tasked with guarding Ionescu, for example - but left to come off the bench if that role isn't deemed necessary.
Teaira McCowan got to start for Indiana after all, but only because Natalie Achonwa suffered a hamstring injury to open up the spot. Unfortunately quicker players are still beating McCowan far too easily, and she's not dominating those same players with her strength and power when she gets the chance. So far, her explosive game against Phoenix has been the outlier.
10. Energy and Injury
All of us - players, staff, viewers and broadcasters - got Monday night off, and it felt like we needed it. Several teams looked tired on Saturday and Sunday, including the 3-0 Mystics who dredged up some energy in the final moments to nearly sneak by Chicago, and the Storm who faded and almost gave up a big lead against Los Angeles. It's a little worrying, because next Monday has scheduled games, which means no breaks for 13 consecutive days.
We're also starting to see the injuries kick in, with muscle strains like hamstring pulls affecting Achonwa and Shenise Johnson and the inevitable knee and ankle tweaks across the league. As a player who should have had a WNBA career noted:
There's not a lot anyone can do about it. All the teams are trying to prepare as well as they can, and the league ended up with a small window to fit this season in, assuming they played it at all. But unfortunately, this could still get significantly worse. It's a slow process to bring new players into the bubble, and by definition they're likely to be 'replacement level', so any injury means a team's remaining players are likely to be taxed even more.
This whole season could be a war of attrition.
11. In the Zone
Watch the WNBA long enough, and you'll notice that the general attitude towards zone defense is similar to what you'll find in the NBA. Most teams have at least some variant buried deep in their defensive playbook, but if you see it on the court then Plans A and B have probably gone wrong (and Plans C, D and E might've already been tried as well).
Phoenix, for example, have been a disappointingly weak defensive team in recent years, and to this point little has changed in 2020. No team with Brittney Griner at center should be as average-to-poor as they have been defensively, but they haven't managed to fix it. On the bright side, it does mean that we sometimes see Sandy Brondello try out random quirks to see if anything improves. Stuff like this:
This starts out looking like a 1-1-3 zone defense, but appeared to drop into a man-to-man as the play developed. It can sometimes be hard to tell, especially when the defense is poor enough to give up an open look very quickly and limit how long you get to see how they react within the play. They've run it a few times in the bubble, to minimal success.
Most teams have a basic 2-3 as their standard "if necessary" zone defense, but will only use it if the man-to-man is being repeatedly shredded. The 3-2 seemed to become moderately popular a few years ago but has faded away again. It can be fun to see what happens when zones appear, because a lot of teams face them so infrequently that they're pretty poor at attacking them. One of these days a coach will actually use a zone as their base defense and go from there. It's not an uncommon approach in Europe.
12. Lovin' an Elevator
Just to prove that I can say something nice about the Mercury and Brondello, this is a fantastic set from later in the same game. Elevator doors!
Diggins-Smith inbounds to Taurasi, then cuts right across the court yelling for the pass (completely bluffing). After setting a faux-screen for Diggins-Smith, Alanna Smith drops down next to Griner for her real role in the set - an elevator doors double-screen with Griner that's executed perfectly. Bria Hartley comes charging across the court, hits the gap between her teammates, who immediately shut the doors and squish Kelsey Mitchell out of the play. Hartley's left in enough space to receive the pass from Taurasi and nail the three before either defender can reach her. A classic play beautifully executed, and credit to Brondello for drawing it up for Hartley - who's had a really nice start to the season, but obviously has some teammates who you'd expect to be higher in the pecking order for a crucial shot.
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