Happy Wednesday, Ball-Knowers!

If you are a part of our paid subscriber tier, you got access to Tyler’s column this morning about the great debate in every front office in sports: win-now vs. building for the future. Naturally, as an Oklahoma native and disciple of Thunder General Manager Sam Presti, Tyler lands on building through the draft and trying to create a roster that will stand the test of at least a half decade. Which is why our enterprising young man took aim at the Chicago Sky and Los Angeles Sparks and their decision to go all-in for a title this year.

You can find that story here and consider upgrading your subscription as more exclusive content from our various WNBA beats starts to trickle in.

Now, to the newsletter!

Sean Highkin of Rose Garden Report joined us on this week’s Luxury Tax to discuss the Portland Fire and do a deep dive into head coach Alex Sarama’s innovative ‘Constraints-Led Approach’ to coaching…

Tyler shares his thoughts on the WNBA’s GM survey, which was released on Tuesday afternoon…

While Chauny and I debate the ceiling and floor of the Las Vegas Aces (and thank you to everyone who pushed us over 8,000 subscribers on YouTube! 10k next!)

Cue the Sideshow Bob meme!

Without writing anything else, that’s probably the best way to sum up the Golden State Valkyries over the last month or so.

Let me be clear about one thing: these moves don’t doom the franchise at all. As I wrote in Five Out on Monday, it’s not so much the decisions that Valkyries GM Ohemaa Nyanin is making but how she is communicating the choices to the media. Like it or not, talking to us is part of the job. Justifying your moves publicly to a fanbase that pays money — A LOT of money, in many cases — to see you win is part of the job. If you don’t want that, then you can go be a GM for a mid-major D1 somewhere and leave us all behind.

But if you want the big check, the big job and the adulation that Golden State was fine to soak in as they surprised the entire WNBA last season, then you have to face the music when you make bad choices.

The newsletter is coming out a bit later this afternoon because I wanted to wait to see what the end result was with Marta Suarez, the Valks draft pick that they waived earlier this week. She didn’t end up clearing waivers, instead being picked up by the Phoenix Mercury.

So, the sequence of events was this…

Golden State, by Nyanin’s own admission, tried to swing big for a yet-to-be-unmasked free agent who didn’t sign. So they draft Flau’jae Johnson and immediately trade her in order to move further down the draft order, where they selected Suarez. Now, Suarez is gone and the most you have to show for a mid-first round pick is…a second round pick in 2028.

That’s objectively bad GM’ing. While a lot of fans were outraged because they just enjoy Flau’jae as a player and person, I am more apoplectic at the idea that Golden State didn’t just find a trade partner for future assets to move out of the draft entirely. The whole thing doesn’t make a lot of sense. And Nyanin has to answer for that, regardless of if she thinks we’re all not smart enough to see the vision. While they earned the benefit of the doubt for their success last year, taking risks is part of your job as a GM. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don’t. When they don’t, you have to be able to justify it.

That’s just the name of the game.

Minnesota Lynx superstar Napheesa Collier gave a wide ranging interview with NPR that ran this week in which she discussed everything from Unrivaled’s future on the back end of a new WNBA CBA to everyone’s favorite subject: the physicality of the league itself.

Kudos to NPR’s interviewer, who pressed her further on the point, for asking if she would prefer games that look more like the WNBA All-Star game (famously a non-defensive affair). Collier’s response was that wasn’t what she wanted to see but rather some small tweaks here and there.

Look, I’m not going to sit here and go all Orwell and tell you to deny what you see. The WNBA is not the NBA. This is a league for grown individuals and, frankly, I don’t love the idea of the W starting to look and feel like its male counterpart. One could argue fairly easily that the rollback of defensive advantages has tilted the NBA into looking like a more homogenized product on the floor even if it isn’t to the trained eye.

I can understand Collier, who no doubt appears to be carrying some lingering frustration over her playoff injury caused by a collision with Phoenix forward Alyssa Thomas (who people, rightly or wrongly, usually default to as the poster child for an overly physical WNBA). But I also don’t love the idea of a former Defensive Player of the Year saying that the league needs to be more offensive. Not everyone will always be perfect with their words but, to me at least, a true defensive stopper isn’t saying that.

Does the league need to tighten some things up? Absolutely. There’s way too many moving screens, too much grabbing defensively for offensive players running off picks and an inordinate amount of players getting into the landing zone of shooters. That’s something that can be fixed by officiating, and has already been addressed.

While I’m not sure if she’s entirely wrong in her assessment, I’d exercise caution to Collier, her coach Cheryl Reeve and WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert. If you overindex on those rules, you will lose a huge part of why people like the product right now: it doesn’t resemble the modern day NBA. Don’t chase a broken product.

A hat tip to our buddy Mitch Northam over at USA Today, who live tweeted much of the Upshot League’s press conference. For those unaware, the new women’s basketball venture was founded in part by former WNBA Commissioner Donna Orender, who I believe is one of the most effective leaders the league has ever had. It was on her watch that the W negotiated their first TV rights deal that included revenue disbursements as well as creating the foundation for a direct-to-consumer video product (we now know it as League Pass. The W technically had it before the NBA). Now she’s putting her effort, after initially trying to back a Jacksonville-based WNBA franchise bid, into Upshot, which positions itself as a developmental league for the pros.

And there’s already some familiar names populating the early roster spots…

When you look around at the various training camp cuts in the WNBA, it stands to reason that those that don’t end up with developmental spots could end up in Upshot in the future. Expansion franchises in Nashville and Baltimore are set to start play in 2027 while four teams — Jacksonville, Greensboro, Savannah and Charlotte — begin play in just a few weeks.

According to the league, they’ve raised about $40 million through around 90 partners and are directly benefitting from the WNBA still being in their own expansion phase. In the long term, it wouldn’t surprise if Orender leveraged her connections and expertise to make Upshot into a legitimate partner league of the WNBA the way the G-League is for the NBA.

But more than that, it also affirms that there is major institutional investment into women’s basketball and we still are years away from a peak and plateau. So, as you read this, consider yourself an ‘early adopter’ as they say in the tech world. Embrace your ball knowledge and toast to the continued growth of the game.

On the clock: How the Valkyries’ five-year championship mandate is driving every decision they make by Nathan Canilao, San Jose Mercury News

Inside the Ariel Atkins Trade: Form, Fit, and Function by Justin Russo, RussoWrites on Substack

Caitlin Clark is a marketing juggernaut — but says winning will unlock more by Shlomo Sprung, YahooSports

Few do it better than Aaron Barzilai’s team over at HerHoopStats. Not just amazing analytics but regular coverage that helps a Ball-Knower understand more about the game.