Happy Monday, Ball-Knowers!

Before we jump into the column, a big thank you to Tyler, Greer, Rashard and Chauny for taking the lead on the site last week. I don’t think any women’s basketball reporters really caught their breath after the Final Four and I’m genuinely appreciative to our crew for letting me catch mine. Sometimes it’s nice to just watch basketball without having to think of a story angle or a take or trying to analyze plays on the floor. But duty calls, and now it’s time to dust off the keyboard and get back in the booth.

Expect our content machine to really get rolling this week, with some guest spots, features and a couple new concepts for you to see. The name of the game this season is really deepening the ‘IRL’ community aspect of No Cap Space, taking what we’re building here online and extending it out to continue growing the game for those who truly love ball.

Now, onto the column!

Tyler took the early ISO on Azzi Fudd’s virtuoso performance against New York on Sunday…

I believe that every great sports team has somewhere between three and five inflection points every season. They are situations in which you face a fork in the road. The team either folds or flourishes. Heading into Friday’s game against the Golden State Valkyries, the Indiana Fever’s vibes felt, in a word, atrocious. Caitlin Clark’s back injury was raising eyebrows, as was the team’s handling of the information from head coach Stephanie White to the Fever’s press office. White herself seemed positively over the media and their persistent questions surrounding her cornerstone guard. Clark stepped up to the pregame podium and spoke as pointedly as she ever had with WNBA media members.

Then, with time winding down in the first half, Clark got frustrated with the pesky defense Golden State was playing and got in Janelle Salaun’s face. On the surface, it looked like a player that was simply annoyed with how she was being officiated and defended all game long. But it wasn’t hard to look beyond that and see a franchise generally frustrated with the totality of what had been happening in the last couple of weeks.

Whatever was said in that halftime locker room certainly changed things for the better.

Indiana, and Clark in particular, came out red hot and matched Golden State blow-for-blow. At one point in the middle of the third quarter, the guard was trailing up the floor and drained a three from the logo in the face of Tiffany Hayes. The two exchanged words and it looked as though Clark and her team got their swagger back. They’d go on to win that game.

In a lot of ways, it felt like that halftime break was one of those inflection points I was talking about. We may never find out what was said or by whom but the entire vibe seemed to flip in the span of about 15-20 minutes. Clark and Aliyah Boston started to play off each other in the way fans have been asking for, while Kelsey Mitchell continued to torture her defenders off the dribble. The ball moved a bit more freely, shots started falling and the Indiana Fever that we expected this season started to show up at last. Clark, for her part, was making faces, talking shit and doing all of the things that made her the face of Iowa women’s basketball and eventually the sport as a whole.

Some people may not like that, but some people love it. As I watched her continue to chirp Hayes, win off the dribble and hit a baseline midrange jumper, I realized that Caitlin Clark reminds me a bit of Christian Laettner, the famous Duke men’s basketball player. Obviously, the two are different. Laettner never had the NBA career that matched his college game while Clark asserted herself as a top three point guard in the WNBA just one season into hers. But this quote from former Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski always sticks in my mind about his former protege and I couldn’t help but think about the Fever’s dynamic young superstar when reading it back on Friday.

Indiana goes as Caitlin Clark goes. While Kelsey Mitchell and Aliyah Boston are superstars in their own right, a basketball team having an effective point guard who can shoot, pass and run the offense is a force multiplier that every franchise tanks for. With so much talk last week about how the franchise is either stifling or letting her flow, the lesson I took away from Friday’s win was that we may just have to become a little inured to what the Caitlin Clark experience actually is. She’s gonna talk shit, she’s gonna be a pest, she’s gonna drain logo threes in your face and either hype you up or piss you off along the way. You can either love it or hate it, root for it or against it. But the fact that Indiana, in one halftime, figured out if only for a game that you got to let Clark dictate the emotion of a matchup, is a good sign that they passed their first major test.

Now let’s see if harnessing the energy in the right way is possible the rest of the season…

Azzi Fudd finally arrived on Sunday, going thermonuclear from beyond the arc and tying for the second-most points scored in any quarter by a rookie in WNBA history. The 17 point barrage in the third helped carry Dallas to a win over the New York Liberty and affirmed to her fans that she is indeed one of the best shooters in this draft class. Head coach Jose Fernandez did a few things differently with his Wings team this weekend, tinkering with the rotations and even being willing to sit Alanna Smith for long stretches.

Fudd operated as a trailing three point shooter, a ballhandler and someone who wasn’t afraid to take her defender off the dribble and go straight to the cup. When she and Paige Bueckers, who also finished with 24 points in the win, are playing at their best, they are a really hard tandem to stop. The tricky thing is being able to get that out of them every game. Whatever you may think of UConn head coach Geno Auriemma, it’s pretty clear that his brash and blunt style of coaching, which involves calling his stars out in the press sometimes, worked for both Fudd and Bueckers. While Jose Fernandez doesn’t have that kind of resume, he does have enough bonafides in the game to feel confident doing something similar.

But maybe that’s what the two of them need. When you see two superstars who sometimes can be passive and semi-unserious, isn’t it a good thing to have a coach that simply won’t let them get away with it? This version of the Dallas Wings is tantalizing and lives up to the billing of being a potential top four team in the WNBA so I get why fans want to see this version of ‘Pazzi’ regularly. It may not always be the case but if Fudd can establish herself as this kind of shooter and let that confidence come organically, the Wings are going to be a major problem for teams moving forward.

Meanwhile in Seattle, top pick Awa Fam finally arrived from Spain and immediately entered the lineup for the Storm, who defeated the Washington Mystics on Sunday. Fam had a relatively quiet 10 points and two rebounds but it’s what’s between the lines that has to make you excited if you’re a Seattle fan. I mean, this kid barely stepped off the plane, had maybe a day or two tops to get acclimated and then immediately steps into the WNBA — a different game than the European leagues from a rule perspective — and actually does pretty well. That’s impressive, regardless of point totals.

I’m not sure what the long term frontcourt vision is in Seattle, as Fam, Dominique Malonga and Ezi Magbegor have to all figure out one another’s play styles and spacing. But if you just keep bringing on these high-ceiling, moderately-high-floor teenage superstars from Europe, something’s gotta give. Malonga and Fam are already a eye-catching combo who can combine with Flau’jae Johnson for a devastating high pick-and-roll tandem. And as the rookie from Spain continues to find her way in the WNBA and learn more about Seattle’s system, I have no doubt that she’s only going to continue to improve.

Things may have started slow, but this Rookie of the Year race may heat up after all…

New York’s loss to Dallas has already elicited some worries among the fanbase about what exactly the plan is with this team. Offensively, the Liberty do look a bit better than they did last year. The ball is moving a bit better, there seems to be less issues with spacing and Breanna Stewart has been a revelation even if her three point shooting is still something of a question mark. Sabrina Ionescu returned to the lineup and Satou Sabally, the free agent pickup of the offseason for New York, is finding her place in the rotation as well.

But defensively, things have looked shaky. The specific frontcourt rotation of Stewart, Sabally and Jonquel Jones was, as the kids say, food for the Wings and their fast-paced perimeter-oriented offense. As both Jones and Stewart get into their later playing years, that ability to get from the paint to the perimeter is going to be taken advantage of more and without some help on the wings, it simply doesn’t look good. After the game ended on Sunday, it was clear to pretty much everyone that Leonie Fiebich needs to get back and soon. On Monday morning, the Liberty activated their German wing.

I’m not too concerned just yet, especially when you look at the amount of injuries and other delays New York has faced to open the year. They still haven’t played with a fully healthy roster yet and that’s been a persistent problem since the Big Three of Ionescu, Jones and Stewart arrived in the Big Apple. It was a major issue last season, and games were won and lost because of it. Which is why I’m hesitant to criticize Chris DeMarco just yet because it’s pretty clear he’s playing with a few cards short of a full deck. Does this team substantially improved with the return of Fiebich? I’m willing to say yes. She’s legitimately one of the most underrated players in the WNBA and is a classic glue piece that can flip a Finals run into a Title chase.

The haters may be ready to say they made a good call, but we are not a monolith here at No Cap Space (word to Chauny!). I still believe in New York and want to see what they can do now that Ionescu has returned and help is on the way.

The biggest question mark for the Atlanta Dream is how seriously we should take them as a title contender. It’s pretty obvious, especially now given their 4-1 start to the season that they’ll be in the mix come September/October. But what we always wonder about teams that build their foundation and get rolling is how many playoff reps is enough before you can get over the hump and beat the best teams the league has to offer.

If we look to this year’s NBA, we can see two different stories that present two paths. In the western conference, Victor Wembanyama is the superstar we all hoped he would be and the San Antonio Spurs are two games away from dispatching the reigning champions in Wemby’s first year in the playoffs. On the other side, the New York Knicks are one game out from returning to the finals for the first time since 1999 after two seasons of playoff tribulations.

Atlanta, if they were to make a deep run, would have to get by a multitude of teams that have a bit more bite and playoff experience than them. But the regular season is providing the Dream with something extremely important: loud environments, tight games and matchups that feel like they have stakes. While they lost to reigning champion Las Vegas in front of over 17,000 fans in State Farm Arena two Sundays ago, it felt like a playoff matchup. Then, this past weekend, Atlanta overturned another large deficit and managed to steal one away from a Phoenix Mercury team that was in the Finals last year.

Does this automatically mean that the Dream can run five or seven games series’ against the best teams in the league when legs are tired after three or more months of basketball? No. I’m not going that far. But you can’t underestimate how important games like these are in the regular season and what they can do for a player like, say, Angel Reese, who simply doesn’t have a lot of playoff reps under her belt at this stage of her career.

It also helps vets like Allisha Gray, Rhyne Howard and others who continue to thrive in those situations. Jordin Canada and Bri Jones have been to Finals’ before and know what it takes. As each game passes, the Dream resemble the 1980’s Cleveland Browns who earned the nickname ‘Cardiac Kids’ for their repeated late-game comebacks. The hope is that it actually pays dividends come the fall, when the consequence for not executing in late game situations is either glory or despair. So while I’m sure Dream fans would love it if Atlanta steamrolled the field every night, what’s actually happening may be even more helpful for the ultimate goal down the road.

Is it just me or do WNBA head coaches have a little bit more spice to them these days? Jose Fernandez, Stephanie White, Rachid Meziane have really leaned into their blunt sides and are happy to indulge us with a golden soundbite or two. That’s before you add in Becky Hammon and Cheryl Reeve, who are always good for a money quote. Every now and then it can come across as gruff or unnecessarily terse but I kind of love it as a media member. It keeps you on your toes and allows empowers you to be willing to return fire should the situation call for it.

What’s been an interesting thing lately, however, is how much some of this critique seems to be directed towards the fanbase of individual players rather than anything the media is writing. As the press, some of what we ask is in service of our own stories, analysis and takeaways. Their answers help us get a better understanding about a play, a moment or why a coach did what they did. Other times, we are asking questions in service of the fans, those who are driving the conversations on-and-offline. It’s those inquiries, specifically around Azzi Fudd and Caitlin Clark in particular, where White and Fernandez specifically seem completely over us and the fans by extension.

I’m not going to clutch pearls and say that’s bad for the game because I earnestly don’t believe that. Let me be clear: I like my coaches a bit crabby. It tells me that they genuinely don’t care what we think or write and their goal is to win games. That sort of blunt honesty makes for great content and allows me to get a better insight into the games themselves. For whatever you want to say about Fernandez, the guy moves in pressers like Jose Mourinho. Who wouldn’t want to cover that!?

It’s been interesting to watch so far, given that coaches like Fernandez, Meziane and White don’t have titles to back up their talk. I’m a big fan of Meziane, specifically, but when you don’t think you owe answers to fans or even your players, you can’t be going 1-6 to open the year. At least with Fernandez and White, their teams are winning even if they don’t look great. Over time, that kind of attitude can be grating but I think it dispenses with the idea that pressers are a useless concept that nobody likes to do.

Give me some spice and a reason to keep coming back. That’s what makes all this fun at the end of the day.

Long Beach State made a really cool hire in NCAA basketball, bringing on TCU assistant and former Oregon/USC guard Minyon Moore. She’s an up-and-comer and I love what she has the capability to bring to a program with a rich history…

And if you want to read about that history, including how Lisa Leslie almost spurned USC in favor of LBSU, you can read my Legendarium installment about the program below.

For those not chronically online, here’s some cool lore.

A superfan of the Atlanta Dream posted some photos of Rhyne Howard from Dream media day. They got it through Getty Images, a photography newswire typically utilized by journalists. Howard was frustrated that the photos went out before she had a chance to post them herself, so she asked the superfan on Twitter if they had permission to post said photos.

Naturally, WNBA Twitter ran with it, to the point of nicknaming Howard ‘The Permission’.

Kind of a kickass nickname right?

Well, here’s the epilogue to a very funny moment. Rhyne Howard gets to take it all in stride, gets a cool moniker that helps build her lore and that of WNBA Twitter and gives fans the kind of inside jokes that help sustain fanbases in the long term. There’s a lesson in there about being willing to laugh at yourself, reframe and make something better out of it.