Happy Monday, Ball-Knowers!

What a week in the basketball world. The WNBA was absolutely on fire, with late comebacks, buzzer beaters and narrative games that are starting to grab the attention baton from the NBA now that the Finals are over. Meanwhile, No Cap Wife was gracious (and as great a travel companion as one can have) enough to accompany me to New York City to see the Knicks first championship parade in 53 years. In the wake of our little one day sojourn to the Five Boroughs, I came away with some deeper thoughts on basketball, and how it’s truly our beautiful game, as opposed to the beautiful game we see in other countries. Not only was it fantastic to be in that environment, and maybe this is overly wife-guy and corny, but it really is one of life’s great joys to have a partner who is willing to step into the uncomfortable and just do a thing for the experience. Writing this newsletter, podcasting and running NCS alongside my colleagues naturally takes up a lot of time, and thus basketball can sometimes seem like a force in opposition to a positive work-life balance. I feel quite fortunate to have the woman I lovingly call ‘No Cap Wife’ here, who not only puts up with it (because lord knows I don’t make it easy), but is happy to jump in with me just because I’m passionate about it.

If you’re the person lovingly supporting your spouse lose their mind, dance in apartment parking lots and shelling out stupid money for flights just to spend 12 hours in a city, standing in a mob of at least 10,000 people, watching your flight get cancelled and then sitting in a hostel bedroom eating NYC takeout Chinese at 11:00 at night, cheers to you all. And a special thanks to mine, as she heads to the University of Tennessee today to begin her Doctorate of Social Work.

The Ball-Knowers may get a special flash column from me this week because it’s hard to not walk away from a day like that and not feel inspired to document it in some way. And yes, that column will be diving deep on where women’s basketball falls into that equation as well. Consider today’s fifth topic in Five Out a teaser…

As for the week ahead, we’ve got more Boots on Various Grounds around the league, as well as a couple features that we’ve been working on coming your way. Like many great championship caliber teams, the first month and change here at NCS has been about ramping up, surveying the landscape and figuring out where we can best serve you, our loyal Ball-Knowers.

So prepare for the stretch run. It’ll be worth your time and subscription.

Onto the column!

Andrew (Forgive his bad internet for this one…) and Tyler broke down Sunday’s game including Indiana’s loss to Atlanta…

I’ve really tried to hold off on playing body language Doctor, analyzing every timeout huddle like the Zapruder Film and trying to assess what the Indiana Fever should do moving forward. Part of what we do is manufacture takes and react to the information we know and hear around the league. You don’t want to fall into the sludge of WNBA Twitter or YouTube SEO, but eventually what you see on the court can’t continue to be ignored so you don’t come off as too hyperbolic.

But I think, after weeks of trying to say Indiana is potentially stabilizing or just need some more time, it’s time for me to admit that something is just categorically off with this Indiana team and I’m not quite sure how it gets better. The biggest reason I feel that way has a lot to do with the Fever’s most recent two performances to the Atlanta Dream, losses both at home and on the road. On Sunday, Indiana seemingly disintegrated in the second half, getting outmuscled on the boards as Caitlin Clark turned the ball over time and time again. By the fourth, she was committing clear frustration fouls and the team largely looked like it quit halfway through the final frame.

If there hasn’t been a Come-to-Jesus moment in that locker room (and from what players themselves have told media, there have been), now is probably the time for the big one.

The shame of it all is that Caitlin Clark looks objectively better in a lot of facets. Even if Stephanie White is confining her superstar to a system, the third year point guard looks to be figuring it out. The turnovers are still a clear and present danger and yet Clark is managing to overcome that blemish by continuing to distribute well, improving her on-ball defense and, most importantly to me, flashing a mid-range game that is causing problems for even her best defenders. In her last five games, she’s averaging 26.0 points per game on 49% shooting. That’s to go along with over eight assists and four rebounds per game. She’s playing at a clear first team All-WNBA level and clearly seems to be figuring some things out.

So why does this team look stuck in the mud and disinterested?

At this point, it’s hard to not look at head coach Stephanie White and wonder what the end goal is. If you wanted your superstar to play a certain way and commit to specific improvements, you’ve gotten that. So why not reward that in good faith by creating some degree of flexibility within the system? In some ways, there is a strange Paul Westhead-Magic Johnson dynamic happening here where ‘The System’ is prioritizing spots on the floor while Magic’s style was inherently free-flowing.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re headed for that kind of high-profile divorce and a team having to choose between a system and player again, but I’ll say this much: Last season I wrote that the Chicago Sky had a decision to make with Angel Reese, and a few months later the franchise traded her to instead prioritize a rebuild on their own terms. Since Tamika Catchings retired, the Fever have been poster children for an old-guard WNBA, woefully underperforming and mismanaged. It wasn’t until the Fever drafted Aliyah Boston, and then later Clark, that their fortunes started to improve. There’s been a papering over of organizational blemishes the last few seasons, but eventually if your identity is that of dysfunction, it was always come up at some point.

Quite frankly, a team with two potential Hall-of-Fame caliber players (Clark and Aliyah Boston) and another perennial All-WNBA scorer (Kelsey Mitchell), shouldn’t be hovering around the 8 seed at any point. If this were the Aces, we’d discuss it like this. Shoot, we did just a couple years ago! Real champions figure it out. Everyone else divides amongst themselves.

Either Indiana heads that off and finds a way forward with both or cuts one loose and moves on. A competent franchise will not let it get to the latter point. Time to figure out if the Fever actually are.

I wrote pretty scathingly about Georgia Amoore a couple of weeks ago and while I still hold to the belief that she might not be the point guard to take the Mystics over the top in the future, she’s firmly quieted down my contention that she may not be a starter at this level. Over the last few games, the second year Australian has done exactly what’s been required of her: hit some shots here and there but primarily facilitate and find the litany of scorers on the floor. While the shooting numbers against the Liberty and Lynx were still substandard, her nearly 2-1 assist-to-turnover ratio in both games was a major boost. And when she gets going, the rest of the Mystics do too.

So where does that leave us with this Jekyll-And-Hyde outfit? Who are the real Washington Mystics?

With nearly a third of the regular season gone, I can confidently say I have no idea. To me, they still aren’t ‘blooded’ enough to make any true noise deep in the playoffs but the ceiling we’ve seen lately, especially in wins over two of the top three teams in the WNBA, is really encouraging. Kiki Iriafen deserves a lot more praise and discussion given that she’s playing at an All-WNBA level in just her second season in the league. Her clutch basket making lately has also given us a window of what she can be. There’s some baby A’ja in her, at least that’s my read.

Sonia Citron feels like one of these players that will be around the WNBA for years and is just going to quietly chug along as one of the premier guards every season. The way I feel Lindsay Whalen is an underappreciated great is how I feel Citron will be to a lot of folks just discovering their fandom now. With that optimism comes the tempering of youth. There’s still going to be strange mistakes and days where things just don’t work. But if your ceiling is standing toe-to-toe with title contenders in year two? You have to feel pretty good if you’re a Washington fan, especially knowing that you hold Chicago’s picks via swap.

Not to get all Becky Hammon here but Golden State lacks a ‘1A’. After a pair of losses to the Lynx and Aces, it feels fair to say that the Valkyries are a variant of the Alyssa Thomas-era Connecticut Sun. In essence, they’ll be a plucky unit that can pester you defensively and grind out a few key WNBA playoff series wins. But do they have that person who will be the momentum shifter when you need them to be? Who is your ‘Give me the ball and get out of the way’ superstar?

Gabby Williams is an incredible player, I want that to be abundantly clear. Between her, Janelle Salaun, Veronica Burton and a bevy of other interesting pieces, the bones of this team are so good that you can make an argument for surprise Finals run. Without a legitimate superstar to point to, that’s pretty damn good. It does make me wonder, once again, who the Valkyries were in the hunt to sign during this year’s protracted free agency.

This might not be the season that Golden State were ready to push all their chips in, and that’s okay. Juste Jocyte, the Valks first round draft selection in 2025, is still being brought along slowly but it feels like there’s a hope she might become that kind of bucket getter. Maybe them being a plucky underdog story again — albeit with the expectations of being a dark horse finals team rather than simply a dark horse playoff team — is all they need to keep selling that vision to an elite free agent next offseason. While the goal is to win championships, there are years that I think we can grade as successful build years in furtherance of that ultimate prize. Even if it’s clear where they’re lacking, it’s still fun to see just how close the Valkyries can get with that limitation.

The Atlanta Dream have won five of their last six games, including back-to-back dubs over the Indiana Fever. While it appears that most WNBA fans are waiting for the playoffs to judge if ATL really has the juice to be a Finals contender, it may be time to talk about the all-time greatness we are witnessing out of Angel Reese and just how much ceiling there is left to find.

She’s a generational rebounder. We know this. Since the beginning of her career in Chicago, Tyler and I have been on the ‘She’s a Dennis Rodman-type at present’ train. The comparison to arguably the greatest boardmaster in basketball history is a positive one, even if most people associate Rodman with his later career off-court escapades. But an incredible defender and rebounder with a limited offensive repertoire who could be the difference maker for a team with title aspirations? Yeah, that sounds pretty spot on.

Here’s the thing: Reese is starting to improve offensively and break out of the shell of solely being considered an elite rebounder without much else.

While her shooting percentages are generally down, her shot diet appears to be changing for the better. Atlanta is getting her more inside space to operate while Karl Smesko’s more analytical approach is prioritizing her between 0 and three feet from the basket. From that range, she’s taken a higher percentage of shots (nearly 60% from inside the circle) than at any point in her career. That goes along with a new emphasis on getting her out to the corner for higher-percentage three pointers, even if the shooting stroke hasn’t quite materialized yet.

It’s all filtering into a more complete version of the record-breaking rebounder we’ve already come to know. It’s taken a bit of time, but my ‘Is the 2024 Draft Class really developing’ overreaction from the first week of the season is starting to crumble in real time. From Clark to Reese, we’re seeing superstars mature and grow into their roles in the league. The interesting thing, if nothing else, is watching how their coaches are managing and channeling those improvements.

I don’t think I was the only one a little emotional watching Nneka Ogwumike break down in tears when asked about the importance of the WNBA’s 30th Anniversary game on Sunday night between New York and Los Angeles.

The link to it is below. It’s absolutely worth your time.

It’s a charged moment. Ogwumike’s three point buzzer beater capped off a 17 point Sparks comeback that stunned the Liberty in front of Hall-of-Famers from Lisa Leslie to Theresa Weatherspoon. While this is technically the 29th anniversary of the first WNBA game, the league is celebrating its 30th season of existence and is thus rolling all of the festivities into one.

“It’s emotional seeing all these legends in the building,” said Ogwumike, fighting back tears. “People that didn’t get paid their value and they’re still coming here supporting us. I’m so grateful.”

I’ve often bristled at the idea that the WNBA ‘Being a cause rather than a sports league’ because it, at its absolute best, is an attempt to commercialize a sport that has primarily been a space for largely marginalized sports communities. At worst, it’s a bad-faith way to suppress a body politic that is inherently counterculture.

The presence of women in sports at all has always, on some level, been a political battle. If it were as simple as people coming to terms with a changing set of cultural attitudes, the United States wouldn’t have required Title IX in the first place. Playing competitive basketball as a woman in this country has always been a fight. In the 1930’s, multiple political pushes resulted in collegiate or even high school competitive basketball for girls being outlawed. It’s what led the legendary Delta State head coach Margaret Wade to burn her jersey in protest as a player. Decades later, Wade led her Lady Statesmen to their first of three AIAW championships in a post-Title IX world.

Creating the WNBA was not a charitable play by former NBA Commissioner David Stern, but a pragmatic business decision that the sport could be a profit center in the future. But it’s important to note how stubborn men like him had to be in the face of a whole lot of other men who thought women’s sports didn’t deserve anything whatsoever. Even as women’s basketball begins to hit the mainstream and appears to be garnering respect amongst a more male fanbase, there are still larger political headwinds that would see young girls that want to emulate these athletes confined to a life of less opportunity.

Ogwumike, fresh off a massive collective bargaining fight that quite literally changed women’s sports in this country forever, innately feels this significance and what had to be sacrificed and fought for to get here. Whatever a fan thinks about how politics, from the identarian to the more tangible, impact the discussion around women’s basketball, you simply cannot ask that the sport divorce itself from the collectivist struggle that saw it come into being.

30 (or 29, I guess) years ago, the idea of a pro women’s basketball league was a massive risk with a high probability of failure. Instead, we just watched Nneka hit a buzzer beater three on prime time Sunday night television in front of what will likely be a viewership number between 1 and 2 million, a sold out crowd roaring behind her.

If you feel that that’s a cause, then count me as one behind it. Those moments are the ones worth fighting for. And even as the WNBA mainstreams into the American consciousness, it’s important to never forget that the politics here are about the advocacy of the game, and the women out there on the floor.

Ogwumike’s game-winner caps “surreal” night for Sparks by Justin Russo, Russo Writes on Substack

Valkyries Insider: Valkyries shooting a season-worst in Las Vegas by Marisa Ingemi, Valkyries Beat

Chris DeMarco wants you to know he’s embracing WNBA culture by Jackie Powell, The IX Sports

(Chris DeMarco was asked last night about his thoughts on the WNBA’s anniversary game and gave a genuine world salad answer. So I appreciated The IX’s Jackie Powell sending me the linked story that dove into that very subject).

And don’t forget to subscribe to NCS or refer us to a friend or women’s basketball fan, new or longtime!