I’ve said it everywhere but it’s really hard to believe it’s already August. The WNBA regular season is over halfway over while NCAA stars are reporting back to campus to begin their school year. So naturally, there’s a lot of questions and things to discuss especially after the last few weeks of action on (and off) the floor.
After a busy July of traveling to games and Indianapolis for All-Star, our NCS team gets a chance to relax and get back into some feature writing and reporting. Luxury Tax will be making a return later this month as we’ve been working to secure some of the biggest up-and-coming NCAA stars for our flagship interview series. So keep an eye out for more interviews on our YouTube page and here on Substack!
As we do every month with the mailbag, a word of gratitude to you, the viewer/listener/subscriber/watcher. With each passing day, NCS grows on a variety of platforms and it doesn’t happen without everyone who sees, shares and enjoys our work. We very much appreciate you being on this ride with us and will continue to put out the best content in women’s basketball!
Now, to the Mailbag!
What Your Subscription Is Helping Fund This Month:
We are happy to announce that all of our home studio upgrades are complete! From now on, no matter who is hosting or on the air, you’ll get an audio/video quality that is high fidelity and high definition. It was a major goal of ours to do these upgrades to professionalize our operation and punch in the weight class of any network or deeper pocketed show in terms of equipment. Without your support, we’re still on Streamyard shooting on phones or using laptop audio.
As we take a breather with our travel, we’ll be planning some larger investments in the show to continue to improve the aesthetic. We’ll be redoing our graphic open, aligning it closer to our new technological quality and current visual palette. Thankfully, we have reporters that are in WNBA markets so you’ll still be able to get postgame notebooks and Boots on The Ground as we round the turn into August and September.
Not much to report outside of that as we continue to make sure we’re being fiscally responsible (the tax man is always right around the corner) and save for potential Boots coverage for the WNBA Finals!
Podcast Questions:
0:00 - Show Introduction
5:35 - NCS Financial Transparency
14:00 - Molly asks…Is Minnesota’s size going to be what stops them from winning a title?
17:27 - AG asks…Are teams learning how to play the Valkyries?
22:43 - Ella asks…What do you think the CBA priorities should be? What is uncompromisable and what do you think may need to wait? Rate the priorities. I would be say the same from a league infrastructure standpoint. The top 5 things you would change in your first months as commissioner.
31:31 - Dustin asks…Just to piggyback off this: can (1) referee quality and (2) scheduling issues (for example, three 10 PM EST games on one weekday night) be negotiated in the CBA?
42:07 - AG asks…If they did an all-WNBA bench (instead of only one 6th woman of the year), who would be on it?
Side note…incredible stuff by Molly to put together a little spreadsheet here with some of the top bench performers of the year and a few metrics. Wanted to share here since she deserves a shoutout for the hard work. A true Ball-Knower!
44:08 - Sophia asks…Spurred by Sherrod being cut - curious if you have ever talked to players who haven’t been cut about what that experience is like for the team? what do they do to create chemistry with the new person coming to replace mid season?
51:09 - Chris asks…If the WNBA Owners aren't careful do you think this new LIV Golf style league Maverick Carter is starting up could just replace the WNBA if lockout occurs if they can get a couple big hitters with big money offers?
57:31 - Dustin asks…Curious if you have any WBB books you'd consider recommending…
1:01:22 - Music of the Month
1:13:52 - Meal of the Month
Written Questions:
Dustin asks…Is PER a reliable measurement? Same question for +/-. If not, what is?
Alright so let’s start with some background. Here is how John Hollinger, the creator of PER describes the stat…
“The PER sums up all a player's positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player's performance."
Effectively, it’s a per-minute statistic and generally is good for assessing trends, in my opinion. The issue that I think people find with it is the problem people have with all statistics in basketball: it takes away mitigating factors and variables that numbers can’t account for. It also is directly correlated to usage rate and rewards even semi-efficient players who get the ball in their hands a lot. A’ja Wilson is a good example here. In terms of true shooting percentage (which calculates 2 point field goals, 3 point field goals and free throws), she was actually more efficient of a scorer in 2024 than 2023. But because her usage was higher (32.2% to 28.9%) and her efficiency didn’t dip too much, it’s rewarded by PER. Much like +/-, it rewards players that stuff stat sheets on a minute-to-minute basis.
I like PER as a way to compare to league average and as a part of the overall statistical picture. But the issue (and I’ve fallen into this too sometimes) is treating PER as the basketball equivalent to WAR in the pursuit of a be-all-end-all stat that measures someone’s overall contribution. If you use it that way, it becomes unreliable in a hurry. If it’s one part of a broader take you’re trying to prove, then it can be just fine.
Sophia asks…Since the W doesn’t have official captains, who are the unofficial ones? Some seem obvious (Nneka/Skylar, A’ja, Phee). but curious which other teams from your reporting have clear de facto leaders. And are they all the stars of the team or anywhere where the leadership and buckets come from different people ?
Generally, the de facto leaders are stars of the team. They’re veterans, leaders and the types of players that you expect to turn to in the clutch. Most of them are pretty obvious while others may be a bit more shrouded. I’d say some of the most interesting situations right now are in Dallas, where Arike Ogunbowale is definitely the de facto leader but Paige is certainly next up, and Indiana, where Caitlin/Aliyah and even new vets like Tash Howard kind of rule by committee.
Out of the 13, there’s no team where I see de facto leaders that aren’t at least top three contributors to the team. The Mystics (who just traded Brittney Sykes) will now be interesting to see as they lose their one backcourt vet who people looked to. Outside of them and the Wings, everyone else is generally set. There are players that might be looked at in outsized ways (think Syd Colson in Vegas, for instance) that are essential locker room glue players. But we sometimes conflate that with leadership when the two roles are similar in some ways yet very different in others.
Dustin asks…I'll ask this in a different way: if Chris Koclanes had a LinkedIn profile, is it acceptable for him to take credit for Paige's better-than-expected first year in the W?
This is a very fun way of phrasing it because if Chris Koclanes was terminally LinkedIn-pilled, a post from him would probably read in the following way…
I got caught on live TV being yelled at by my subordinate as we lost out on a major opportunity. Here’s what it taught me about B2B SaaS sales…
On some level, I think he deserves a little bit of credit for allowing Paige to feel empowered as a rookie when she was thrust into a lineup that included a lot of vets vying for serious playing time. The strangest thing about what Curt Miller did in the offseason with Dallas was that he knew Paige was coming and still decided to add DiJonai Carrington and Ty Harris to the mix. As good as the UConn rookie has proven to be, both of those players have aspirations to be starting level guards in this league but neither would be replacing Arike. It seems to me that a lot of Chris Koclanes ‘everybody eats’ strategy offensively was rooted in the idea that you had to keep two players happy with their involvement in facilitating play in the halfcourt. Harris got hurt early in the year and Carrington got traded because she clearly wanted a different role. What I’m interested in learning in the offseason is how the dynamic played out from the start. Was Koclanes trying to make due with a weird backcourt rotation or did he not do enough to positively foster a good environment for it to succeed?
While I don’t think he’s hindered Paige, he probably can’t claim credit for her rookie year. Much like Caitlin Clark and Christie Sides, it’s abundantly clear that the player in question is a rare talent and one of the best in the league already. On a lot of levels, it’s really hard to limit a player of that quality but you have to be really damn good to be able to claim their success as a coach in the same respect.
Ella asks…How about a primer on the wave of player podcasts?
It’s amazing to see how many players are getting in on the podcast game here. I’ll do a quick run of the 4-5 newest ones and what they seem to bring.
Studbudz - I wrote after All-Star that eventually corporatism would come for the show and while we’re not there yet, we got an inkling of what Courtney Williams will want to do when the money comes. Dating back to 2020, she’s made it very clear she’s about bread and bags. And that’s fine, it just means that we may end up with a lesser version of Studbuz when all is said and done. For me, it’s not an every day watch but after All-Star I think their value is in showing fellow WNBA stars as the normal folks they are.
Show Me Something with Sophie Cunningham - Personally, I have no interest in this whatsoever. Kudos to her for cashing in when you’re in demand but this is one person that will not be patronizing the product. She’s just not interesting enough for me to care about her basketball opinions. Take away the wink/nod political stances and we’re left with WNBA Dillon Brooks. If DB had a pod, I wouldn’t really care for it much either. Some might (and that’s okay!) but I wouldn’t. What makes role players succeed in media roles is their humor, insights and access (Studbudz is a perfect example of this). Everything I’ve heard about Sophie’s podcast is it’s red meat to a base of fans that aren’t there for purely basketball reasons and basically a reheated version of whatever Rachel DeMita is doing. Again, fine for some but not of interest to me.
Post Moves Show with Candace Parker and Aliyah Boston - Jo had a good question that will make it to Ball Up Top but I have a lot of thoughts here. Someone said CP and AB had a dynamic of older cousin/younger cousin and now I can’t unsee that. Personally, any time I get more of Aliyah Boston, I enjoy it. She’s really good on camera and she’s a great personality (and is an All-WNBA caliber player so I have a bit more respect for her actual game insights). Candace gets a lot of shit in an era where standom is more prevalent than ever before but I think we need more former players with pedigrees making legitimate critiques about players without criticizing the game itself.
Straight to Cam with Cameron Brink - It’s more of a lifestyle show but I think that’s totally fine for the intended audience. Every now and then, she’ll bring up a pretty interesting WNBA point I hadn’t previously considered (the practice players discussion, for instance) that makes me think and I’ll always appreciate places that do that. Generally, I think her lane is perfect for where she is as a player too.
Jason W asks…I know it’s usually a shoe in for a big, but is it a real possibility to see Gabby Williams have a shot at DPOY this year?
Now that the Storm have Sykes I’m really interested in this discussion. The argument I had when I first sat down to record this morning — as an aside, thank God this one wasn’t in the pod! — was that Gabby would have an uphill climb the more the Storm lost. The issue that they had is that their original two guard, Jordan Horston, is injured and that there was this total vacuum in the lineup at one key position. Now that Sykes is there and can guard other elite guards, Williams can focus on being the primary wing defender and really cause havoc in doubles and traps.
All of her advanced metrics, from defensive rebound percentage to steal percentage, win shares and per 36 steals per game, are all up while her average fouls per game is way down. There’s an outside shot she can catch Phee now that the Lynx superstar is out for a couple weeks but Seattle will likely have to go on a run while she just clamps people left and right. One big problem is that there aren’t a ton of super elite wings in the WNBA right now. A’ja, Stewie and Phee are classified as bigs, Dearica Hamby and Alyssa Thomas are somewhat positonless, so that leaves Satou Sabally and maybe Rickea Jackson?
If we’re talking narrative building, it just makes it harder to package Gabby’s defensive assignment. For example, when we get Phee vs. A’ja, that’s a narrative game for MVP/DPOY etc. Who is Gabby’s award matchup? And if she doesn’t have one of that caliber, how do we assess her game to game to the casual/voter?
It’s an outside shot but a high hill to climb.