Happy Monday, Ball-Knowers!

All-Star weekend is bearing down on us and the playoff race continues to tighten between seeds 3 and 8. Angel Reese said in her postgame press conference after Saturday’s loss to Golden State that this portion of the year is sometimes the hardest in the WNBA. Some are taking their foot off the gas ahead of a big break in the action while others are trying to make a push for playoff position.

Here at No Cap Space, it’s a wonderful time of the year. The agendas are fully up, the award races are fleshing themselves out and there’s just generally a lot of interesting things to talk about. So let’s take advantage of a reset in the WNBA world and enjoy what’s coming…

Onto the column!

Paid subscribers will get a feature from Atlanta, where the Dream spent their road trip putting together a book club.

We’ll also have Boots on the Ground for Storm vs. Dream on Thursday.

Some of the Ball-Knowers may have already seen the monthly mailbag in video or podcast form. The written version will be in your inboxes this coming weekend.

Andrew and Tyler broke down this week’s Five Out on the NCS YouTube…

Andrew’s postgame wrap from Atlanta vs. Golden State…

Postgame comments from Karl Smesko, Angel Reese and Allisha Gray…

As well as some written words about what’s gone wrong the last five games and Saturday, in particular…

The Chicago Sky are not fixed, by any means. They are still a deeply flawed WNBA team and the fact that they continue to blow late leads is indicative of some type of structural problem that head coach Tyler Marsh and his staff have not addressed or alleviated yet. But I was willing to go further with my skepticism, believing wholeheartedly that 37 year old point guard Courtney Vandersloot was, in a word, completely washed.

Wrong.

While she may not be the type of player anymore to give you a 20+ point, 10+ assist performance anymore, it’s very clear that the veteran point guard raises the competitive floor of this team tremendously.

Vandersloot’s place as lead dog also moves Skylar Diggins over and bumps Natasha Cloud, a hot-and-extremely cold player this year, further towards the bench. There’s still all sorts of defensive headaches involving Sloot’s presence on the floor but when your goal seems to just be outscoring your opponents, any added offensive help is a plus. Chicago still blows leads and needs to move heaven and Earth in order to get back into playoff contention but there’s still enough time and some plus matchups ahead to do it.

If that happens, it will be due in no small part to Vandersloot’s return. I still don’t think you mortgage your future and biggest superstar for the whims and wishes of a veteran point guard but at the very least, the Sky don’t look completely foolish for taking a chance on the upside.

It’s been strange in recent years to watch the flattening of Breanna Stewart’s legacy. One thing about A’ja Wilson’s ascendance to GOAT status is that her foil, the longtime UConn forward who was tabbed as the best player of her generation, seemingly has fallen by the wayside. I’m not sure if that has to do with going to New York, falling short of the expectations that come with building a ‘Big Three’ or if Sabrina Ionescu’s marketing machine is just a little bit bigger and better. But it’s been pretty stunning to see people seemingly forget about Stewie as a face of this league and one of the best players in it.

While the three point shooting is gone and may never come back, the Liberty forward’s ability to get to the line and pester opponents defensively more than makes up for it. At their best this year, New York was running clean through Stewie and making her the centerpiece on both ends of the floor.

I’m not sure how that can continue now that Sabrina Ionescu is back in the lineup and presumably rounding into form after a 26 point Commissioner’s Cup Final performance. There’s something to be said that the former Oregon guard has been positioned as the Liberty’s biggest star when the reality is that it’s the kid from Cicero-North High School in Syracuse who carries one of the most illustrious CV’s the sport has ever seen.

Do the Liberty need to win another WNBA championship for people to remember that Stewart was once pre-ordained as a transcendent women’s athlete on the level of a Maya Moore type? Perhaps. But it definitely feels like the league and her own team need to market her as a lead dog and a true foil to A’ja Wilson as opposed to a great-if-aging player who is ceding that ground to a guard who wants the spotlight but maybe doesn’t possess the historically great ability to punch in that weight class.

I don’t want to play the greatness fatigue game with A’ja Wilson. In my opinion, she’s the best player in the WNBA until she’s not and a few games being out with injury isn’t going to change my mind very much. But there is something to a vibrant MVP conversation that I believe is just healthy for the discourse around the league. No one is above being run down by their contemporaries and if Paige Bueckers is making any MVP case it’s going to begin with this run she’s currently on…

There’s just too many historically significant markers Bueckers is passing as her Wings continue to push up the WNBA standings with a blowout win over the Toronto Tempo. The UConn alum has controlled the pace of the game, limited her turnovers while initiating an offense that still hasn’t hit its ceiling yet. More importantly, Bueckers is showing up down the stretch in fourth quarters, shaking some of the claims of passivity that dogged her during her college career.

There’s moments where she waxes and wanes, to be very clear. But the fact that you’re seeing her demand the ball more in the clutch, being willing to take players one-on-one and showcase just how deep her bag is indicates that she’s taking the next step in her professional development. That doesn’t necessarily mean she’s in A’ja Wilson’s tier just yet but Paige is playing in the same sandbox as Olivia Miles and Breanna Stewart (and potentially Caitlin Clark, depending on what you’d value as an MVP voter) as those who have at least earned the opportunity for us to say, “Hear Me Out”…

How much better are the Indiana Fever without Caitlin Clark? The statistics don’t actually bear out a defined answer. While the Fever are 3-0 so far this year when their point guard isn’t playing, two of those three wins came against franchises (Sparks, Aces) without their star players (Kelsey Plum, A’ja Wilson) in the game. The third win was over an expansion Portland Fire. When you get into the numbers, however, there are some interesting things we notice…

Indiana is better, by Net Rating, offensively with Clark and much better defensively without her. It makes plenty of sense, given that it just isn’t the former Iowa superstar’s strong suit. The issue is that the disparity is so stark that it opens up questions about where the middle ground is between how Clark plays and what Steph White wants to do with her roster. In short, the Fever are a marginally worse offensive team and a substantially better defensive unit without her. That’s not anecdotal, that’s the story the stats are telling us. But those statistics are only one part of the story and I don’t think there’s a real narrative to make here of the dichotomy. Without Clark, the Fever are a very good team without a clear championship ceiling. With her, the variance may be higher but the ceiling isn’t in question.

As she continues to come rehab from a back injury, Indiana will continue to try to keep their head above water. If there’s one specific thing I’m following, it’s not the results but how Kelsey Mitchell plays. I’ve got a take on if those two are able to actually be the tandem Steph White needs to win a title, but we need some more data points before we can definitively say that that pairing is the weak link.

I’m a generally optimistic guy by nature. I tend to believe that if a team is stringing some wins together that they’ve potentially figured it out. Usually, that belief is betrayed the very same or next night through a blowout loss or some other calamity that allows people to get in my Twitter mentions telling me that I don’t, in fact, know ball.

But when Kahleah Copper is going thermonuclear, it’s hard to not feel like the Phoenix Mercury are starting to figure things out a bit.

Copper, who was in a biblical shooting slump to open up the year, seems to have figured some things out recently. She’s getting to the line more, is finishing with more cleanliness at the rim and is limiting bad shot opportunities in favor of more high percentage looks. Without a Satou Sabally type to be the third head of the Mercury’s Hydra, it was going to fall to the 30 year old shooting guard to carry a lot of the load.

Is this sustainable through the rest of the year? That’s anyone’s guess but Copper has averaged high volume scoring in her last couple of seasons. With a few more plus matchups ahead (Chicago, Indiana) before two huge tests (Las Vegas, Minnesota), Phoenix can see the road to .500 in front of them. If they manage to win the first two games, lose the next two then beat Connecticut twice and L.A. once before the All-Star break, the Mercury will be on the outside-looking-into the playoff picture at 13-15. Not a bad place to strike out from as you go on a second half of the season quest for a postseason bid.

Seattle Storm (5-17) vs. Los Angeles Sparks (8-10): 10:00 PM ET, USA Net

There’s a clear argument to be made that the game with more stakes and more interest is Golden State vs. Washington. But being a Ball-Knower is more than just chasing the biggest on-paper matchups. Sometimes it’s about chaos, about fireworks and the messiness of the middle of the standings. Los Angeles is trying to navigate a world without Kelsey Plum while Seattle has shown a surprising pluckiness in recent weeks. I expect a massive game out of Dominique Malonga and/or Awa Fam. Since defense is optional for both of these teams, it stands the chance to be the most entertaining game of the night. And on a Monday, looking to come down off whatever the USA - Belgium World Cup result will be, that’s all I’m really looking for.

Amid losing season, Sky GM Jeff Pagliocca still sees playoff potential and an underrated young core by Alissa Hirsch, Chicago Sun-Times

WNBA coaches, GMs share frustrations over ongoing officiating issues: ‘You get what you pay for’ by Annie Costabile, The Athletic

Richard Deitsch of The Athletic also sat down with Geno Auriemma for a wide ranging interview I think may be worth your time…

And, of course, if you haven’t subscribed yet to No Cap Space, be sure to here and help us hit our goal of 3,000 subscribers before the All-Star break! There’s never been a better time to convert someone from a casual to a Ball-Knower!