Happy Wednesday, Ball-Knowers!

Thanks for bearing with us as we finalize some projects that will start rolling out here in a few days. It’s been a little quiet on the Appalachian front but there’s been work to be done. If you aren’t in our Ball-Knowers Discord or follow me on Twitter, I was up at the University of Kentucky on Monday grinding some tape with Wildcat women’s basketball head coach Kenny Brooks. He’ll headline a new series that we’re excited to bring you here on the newsletter as well as on YouTube! So as we settle back in for the stretch run from a content perspective, know that we’ve got some good things coming down the pipeline for you!

We’ve got a lot to recap this past week (and weekend specifically) in the WNBA so let’s get to it.

Chauny had Boots on the Ground for Atlanta vs. Las Vegas. Here’s the postgame Dream presser…

As well as Chauny’s recap with friend of NCS and Dream reporter Nia Symone…

Tyler broke down Kelsey Plum’s trade to Phoenix…

And Toronto’s trade for Aneesah Morrow…

And finally, Greer joined up for a special live postgame show on Sunday following Indiana vs. Minnesota.

For the past two and a half seasons, the Minnesota Lynx have been knocking on the door. They narrowly lost the 2024 WNBA Finals to New York and were a Napheesa Collier injury away from returning in 2025 for what most of us thought would be a heavyweight title fight between Minnesota and Las Vegas. In that span, the Lynx are a combined 89-26. Championship windows are a finicky and fleeting thing. One single variable can change the entire trajectory of a team and franchise.

But, if all stays as is, it feels inevitable that Minnesota is going to win a WNBA title in the next few years. And it sure feels like this season might be the one.

Sunday’s Lynx vs. Fever game was a banger. The type of on-court product that is unimpeachable, even by the saltiest of skeptics. It was, to put it mildly, great ball. And Minnesota walked away the victors. Olivia Miles may not win MVP in her rookie year, but that has nothing to do with her. In any other era of the WNBA, she’d be joining Candace Parker as the only rookie MVP’s in league history. But Miles has the misfortune, as many in this era do, of playing at the same time as A’ja Wilson, who has simply done nothing to give ground up to any challengers.

The reason that’s important is because, without that distinction, history may forget the impact Miles has had on the game as a rookie. But the Ball-Knowers will remember. 28 points, 6 assists, 4 rebounds and some truly high-level bucket getting down a critical stretch in the 4th quarter against two of the most talented guards in the WNBA. Miles met the moment on Sunday and has done so multiple times already this year. With Napheesa Collier back and fully healthy (and with the trade deadline safely behind them), the table feels set for the Lynx to pretty much cement themselves as the best team in the league.

So what still needs to be done, beyond the obvious winning of games?

In short, winning the crowd.

I think back to September 4th, 2025. The league leading Lynx have just claimed the top seed in the playoffs and go to Las Vegas to take on a red hot Aces tea about matchups like these — Phee vs. A’ja and an MVP narrative hanging in the balance — and she downplayed one game being a referendum on the frontrunner. Collier finished with 12 points on 5/13 shooting while Wilson put together a 31 point, 8 rebound performance while going 12/15 from the field.

In the next week, The Athletic ran a piece with the headline ‘Has A’ja Wilson taken the lead over Napheesa Collier in the MVP race?’ while ESPN’s Michael Voepel laid out a case titled “How the WNBA MVP race went from sure thing to bonafide battle.” Whether players and/or coaches like it or not, these games do carry weight. Legacies and seasons can be shaped off these matchups.

In short, they reveal who the real killers are; Those rare talents that are able to blend their talent with a showmanship that is befitting of big moments.

Olivia Miles already showed me what I needed to see on Sunday when she fouls Kelsey Mitchell in a critical moment on one end and then effectively ices the game with an acrobatic and-one on the other. Even when she makes a mistake, she makes up for it. She understands big games and big moments and, maybe most importantly, understands the importance of the show.

With so many high-profile matchups ahead — the Lynx have, by far, the hardest remaining strength of schedule in the WNBA — there’s plenty more chances to keep winning the narrative. When you win the crowd, you can ride one heck of a wave to a title. And after this past Sunday, it feels like Minnesota is starting to do just that.

Indiana, for the last three years, has been trying to answer a fundamental question: Are they ready to be a true WNBA Finals contender?

They got to the semifinals last season, but without Caitlin Clark it was hard to make a judgement on whether or not the Fever writ large had arrived. Even in a loss against Minnesota over the weekend, I’m more ‘in’ on them being a WNBA Finals team than I’ve been at any point this year.

Since returning from the All-Star break, the Fever have been playing at a breakneck speed with an offense that, statistically speaking, is one of the most potent we’ve ever seen in the league. Clark earned Eastern Conference Player of the Week honors averaging 25.7 points, 5.0 rebounds and 9.0 assists per game in that span. They are on pace to dismantle the league’s team-points-per-game record.

They’ve settled on a faster pace and seem somewhat willing to settle on being a deficient defensive unit if it means they can outscore their opponents. If nothing else, it’s a clear identity at long last.

That, to me, is the difference between a team that should make it to a WNBA Finals and a team that can make it to a WNBA Finals.

If the margin of a champion, as I outlined above, is having the showman-killers on your team, then clear identity is what gets you to the dance in the first place. Stephanie White hangs her hat on disruptive defense but this just might not be the team to do it with. They want to run, gun and hit big shots. Much like Diana Taurasi’s 2010 Phoenix Mercury team that set the team-point-per-game record.

It appears she’s letting them do it.

If that can be ridden all the way to a WNBA Finals win would be impressive in this era of the league. But, for the first time since Caitlin Clark arrived in Indiana, I am sitting here at the start of August and feeling pretty confident that the Fever would meet the major playoff moments required to make a finals run. I think I’ll know for sure the next time the Fever and Lynx meet: back-to-back to end the regular season.

There’s an old joke in the NBA world about how former commissioner David Stern was willing to act as the Hand of God to achieve his desired outcomes. He might work to keep a team in a city, or allegedly freeze a ping pong ball to assure a major market franchise gets a top prospect in the draft. Shoot, he may even create a completely separate basketball league!

And if he were alive and running the WNBA today, there is no doubt in my mind that he’d be working to put Juju Watkins on the Los Angeles Sparks next spring.

After firing General Manager Raegan Pebley, the Sparks traded Kelsey Plum to Phoenix, receiving their 2027 first round pick among others in the deal. They still have tradeable assets in Dearica Hamby and Cameron Brink. The tank is officially on and L.A. appears fully prepared to try and retool around these two first rounders they have.

Are you picking up what I’m putting down?

It’s impossible to ignore the superstar in South Central Los Angeles. A child of Watts, the spiritual heir to a legacy forged by Cheryl Miller and refined by Lisa Leslie, and the number one prospect in the 2027 WNBA Draft class. The Sparks would be committing organizational malpractice to not at least try, especially knowing that the consolation prize could be Hannah Hidalgo or Madison Booker.

Is there a trade package that would be enough to get the first overall pick if L.A. doesn’t end up in the lottery? Is the organization worried about gambling and losing on a tanking bet the way they did with Paige Bueckers? And, interestingly enough, wouldn’t Lynne Roberts’ star-centric system actually favor a read-and-react guard like Watkins the way it favored and ran through Kelsey Plum?

Now I’m not saying or advocating that the WNBA work to tip the scales in favor of Los Angeles. There’s a fair argument an enthusiast of the game could make that Juju Watkins ending up in Houston to revive the Comets franchise would be just as meaningful. All I’m saying is that all signs in Los Angeles are pointing towards a push for that outcome. And if it just so happened that the forces of nature aligned in a way that the Sparks and Watkins ended up together, well I wouldn’t be upset about that one bit.

…And that’s a good thing. Whether the moves seem smart or nonsensical, I do appreciate Kelsey Plum’s persona. Like Portland Fire head coach Alex Sarama, the newly-minted Mercury guard is a practitioner of the constraints-led approach. In every aspect of life, she learns by doing. When she talks at press conferences about being where her feet are, I’m more inclined to believe her than a lot of other athletes. Which is why, after one game, I’m willing to buy into the idea that it can supercharge Phoenix back into the Finals contender they were last year.

All year, the Mercury have needed another creator. Head Coach Nate Tibbetts even admitted in his postgame press conference on Monday night that they’ve been after Plum for a couple seasons now. In just 21 minutes (and relatively fresh off an injury, to boot), Plum put up 20 points on 6/10 shooting with 4 assists in her debut. It opened up opportunity after opportunity for Kahleah Copper, who led all scorers with 31.

Plum, after two uneven seasons in Los Angeles, may have a real home here, at least for this season. Every stop and decision since leaving Las Vegas seems to revolve around the idea that she is who she thinks she is. There’s a really interesting opportunity to assert that idea coming up. Phoenix plays Washington, currently occupying the eighth and final playoff spot, three times out of their remaining 13 games. Plum can be the difference maker that can help swing a late playoff push. If they pull that off, then anything can happen afterward.

I am a believer in some form of karma. You get what you give. Free Radicals, all that stuff.

So believe me when I tell you I believe Jeff Pagliocca must’ve been James Naismith in a past life because the Basketball Gods favor him as though he were one of their own.

Have there been some baffingly bad personnel moves? Absolutely. The Ariel Atkins trade is going to go down as one of the worst in the last half decade. But then he gets a gift, courtesy of now-fired L.A. GM Raegan Pebley, and he’s able to flip Atkins for Rickea Jackson. The Angel Reese saga was a black eye on the franchise, and yet he managed to do right by the outgoing superstar, sending her to the destination she wanted while stockpiling picks. Even as he makes the ill-advised decision to sign Skylar Diggins, he and Tyler Marsh identify Sydney Taylor and now have a legitimate three player core in Taylor, Jackson and Kamilla Cardoso on favorable contracts.

Anyone who has read my work for awhile knows that I’ve been critical of the Chicago Sky over the last handful of years. But I always try to give credit where it’s due. If you squint a bit, you can start to see Pagliocca’s post-Angel Reese vision. If they manage to finish the year on a high note, there might be an opportunity to springboard into something better and more consistent in 2027.

Phoenix Mercury (12-19) vs. Atlanta Dream (18-11): 7:00 PM ET, League Pass

There are pockets of the Atlanta Dream fanbase that were interested in potentially kicking the tires on Kelsey Plum before the trade deadline. Now they get to see her in the Gateway Center, albeit on the opposing side. I’m interested in this matchup for a pair of reasons. First, if Phoenix wins here then they’ll have taken four of their last five (and that one loss was by two points to New York). But second, it’ll affirm that Plum’s addition can potentially propel a Mercury playoff push with 13 games left in the regular season.