Welcome back to the Monthly Mailbag! This one is coming a bit later in September as the news cycle — in the WNBA as well as real life — has been…rather chaotic.
If you’ve missed any of our postseason coverage so far, we’ve got Five Out up as well as our postgame lives on YouTube (in which we’ll be on every night of the playoffs).
The mailbag touches on a variety of subjects from fun roster questions to CBA negotiations and what certain teams need to do better heading into next year. It’s personally one of my favorite pieces of content for our Ball-Knowers and if you’d like to join our little community, be sure to subscribe and be a part of the madness!
Now, onto the questions and some subscriber transparency.
The Mailbag!
What Your Subscription Is Helping Fund This Month:
This has been a bit of a quiet month for us as we prepare for playoff travel. Your subscriptions were able to fund a good quick jaunt down to Las Vegas for Aces vs. Lynx. In addition to the postgame notebook, we’ll also be firing out some new features on Chelsea Gray and Kierstan Bell your way this coming week. Chauny has also been hard at work in Atlanta becoming a de facto beat writer for the Dream and covering them as well as whatever team comes to visit that day.
If you’ve noticed some changes in our video content it’s because we’ve also been putting in new efforts to modernize our podcast look. After seeing some interesting statistics recently with regard to how people are watching pods on YouTube and the audience share there, we’ve decided to put a little more into our post-production efforts for all of our content on that side. Soon, there should be some changes to the newsletter that will also reflect a new and more modern push into ourselves as media company instead of just media outlet.
Our crew is also earmarking early college season weekends and assessing potential travel for those game as well. Towards the end of the month you should keep an eye out for more NCAA previews and a continuation of our Luxury Tax series. Style Sessions, our fashion series on the W, will also be back next week. Now, onto the mailbag!
Podcast Questions:
0:00 - Show Introduction
5:35 - Anna asks… Is the surprisingly play of Kiki Iriafen and Soni Citron have any indictment on Lindsey Gottlieb and Niele Ivey, specifically with how they were used (or underused) in college? For example, one could say that Soni should’ve been more of a focal point offensively at Notre Dame. In sum, were they underused in college, are the coaching/development staff in Washington just that good, or is their nice adjustment a natural progression from college to the pros?
13:00 - Anna asks…Candidly, I haven’t been watching the Wings that closely, just tapping in when I can, box score watching, and catching the top headlines. Is the very public push for Nola Henry to assume the HC position by wings fans just an over dramatic response to how they feel Koclanes is performing? Or has she been in that group of assistants that everyone thinks will be a hot commodity for a HC one day (like Nakase and Marsh were last year and Brianne January now). I ask because I compared the resumes of Nola and Chris, and they actually overlap a lot as they were coaching under Kurt, and Chris has been cutting his teeth in the wbb coaching sphere for a little longer. Other than Nola being a HC for unrivaled last year, I don’t see how, on paper, Nola would have been an upgrade to Chris. What am I missing?
23:42 - GM asks…Thoughts on whether the Mystics try and keep Shakira Austin, and if not what other post players/type of players they should target in free agency that would fit well with Kiki and Sonia's play styles?
27:40 - AG asks…With so many players experiencing either season-long or season-ending injuries, do those players looking for lighter off-season commitments to rehab or is it business as usual? Do we see changes to off-season opportunities like Unrivaled?
33:30 - Brian asks…What do you think the Seattle Storm need to do in order to get back into contention for a WNBA title? Even without Breanna Stewart, they've had some talented teams and great players since 2023 but it just feels like something is missing. What do you think they should do to turn things around?
39:45 - Anna asks…I’ve been with NCS for about a year and a half, and am interested to know what specific pieces of content (a column, video, podcast) have left our little stratosphere and generated significant boosts in engagement/subscribers/viewers/etc for you guys. Are there pieces you’re shocked got as much attention as it did, and which pieces do you wish would’ve reached the general masses?
49:52 - Meal of the Month
51:45 - Music of the Month
Written Questions:
Anna asks…Where do the coaches stand in all the CBA negotiation stuff? Are they more aligned with the players or the owners? Can they even speak on labor talks, and if so, should there be more pressure for more esteemed coaches like Becky and Cheryl to voice and assert their support for the players union, or even more so, leverage their positional power with owners to benefit the players?
So I went back to try and find quotes from Cheryl and Becky on their positions regarding player pay and other general advocacy. Curiously (or not, I guess), there isn’t a lot from Becky on this. In fact, the opposite has been true. Hammon, for all the work that she’s done as a player, coach and (kind of?) executive, has been notably held up as a figure that displays the inequality players face in this league. If it wasn’t the Dearica Hamby investigation, it was Liz Cambage drawing attention to the fact that the Aces had a team salary budget of $1.4 million while Hammon was making $1 million annually as a head coach. On one end, the Vegas head coach gives off a bit of a “pick yourselves up by your bootstraps like I did” vibe. At the same time, I would hope that a former player has an understanding of what she had to do and wants better for the next group of people coming up.
As for Cheryl Reeve, I think she is generally in support of what the players union is trying to achieve. Back when the charter flight debacle was still happening in the WNBA, she was outspoken in that her players needed to be treated better by league ownership. Here’s a past quote I was able to pull from a MPLS/St. Paul Magazine interview from 2021 where Reeve discusses Maya Moore.
“The expectation is greatness—the normalcy of greatness. And so, wherever Maya was, whether that was here in Minnesota, whether that was over in China, that’s what was expected. And that winning takes a toll: It takes a toll on your families; it takes a toll on your personal life.”
That sounds to me like someone who understands what a player faces on the day to day and why those working conditions need to be improved upon.
Now whether or not they can is a different story entirely. Reeve is the official General Manager of the Lynx while Hammon is in a slightly more amorphous role that even we at NCS are unable to really decipher. While I doubt there is actual language in their contracts that keeps them from speaking on CBA negotiations, their status as executives put them in a position where they probably aren’t able to. Not only is it a conflict of interest, they’re also in a managerial role relative to the labor that the players are classified as.
Even if they were, I actually have a somewhat zag-ish take on this that I don’t think players needed coaches and executives weighing in. Yes, there is a strength and power to be found in the collective action of labor as well as the managerial class uniting against the capital class. However, the unintended consequence of such a thing is that the concerns of the workers can become overshadowed by what the managerial class deems more important, especially given that they’re not part of the Player’s Association.
It’s a long winded way of saying that I think the coaches would do well to actually stay out of this as much as possible. I’d rather this movement remain player led and controlled, so we don’t end up with a “NBA Players ready to strike in 2020 but Lebron collabs with Obama and basically spikes collective labor action in favor of capitulatory capitalism” scenario.
Jay asks…If you were asked to build a starting 5, choosing one player from each college class as well as the class of 2026; who would you choose? Not just 5 best players, but one player per position. And if you had to pick one W player to coach them, who would it be?
I absolutely *love* this question. So if I’m following this correctly, it’s a starting five based on the current four college classes (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026). If that is the case, let’s start here…
PG: MiLaysia Fulwiley (2023)
SG: Mikayla Blakes (2024)
SF: Oliviyah Edwards (2026)
PF: Sienna Betts (2025)
C: Lauren Betts (2022)
Head Coach: Aliyah Boston
Let’s start in the frontcourt…
Not only do I think the Betts sisters have the familiarity of how to play with one another (I mean they’re sisters, right?) but I love the options they’re able to give you in terms of spacing in the frontcourt. Lauren gives you the height and post presence on both sides of the floor. Sienna is viewed as more of a Jokic-type that has the ability to run the floor, operate as a point forward and shoot with range. To me, that’s the future of women’s basketball right now and what every team will start to try and build in their dream frontcourts. Oliviyah Edwards just committed to Tennessee over the weekend and is already a dunker as well as a lengthy and versatile forward that can guard 2-4 at minimum. As for the backcourt, I’m much higher on Fulwiley than some tend to be. Plus, when you have a player like Sienna Betts in the frontcourt that is capable of facilitating as well as operating out of the post, you can let your guards have a bit more freedom. In this starting five, it feels like Lay and Mikayla Blakes wouldn’t be required to initiate the offense exclusively. Plus, I personally love the idea of Sienna as a point forward that can take advantage of the latter two’s ability to slash and cut.
I know some might be wondering where JuJu fits into all this. As much as I love JuJu, I think I need to see her style change a bit before I start putting her on teams flush with talent that require multiple players to have the ball in their hands.
Now…for a coach. On some end, I think the impulse would be to bring on someone like Alyssa Thomas on the basis of her otherwordly ability to process the game. But history tells us that savants like her or A’ja Wilson, for example, can be hit-or-miss as coaches. Sometimes, they’re capable of communicating their vision but other times they’re expecting players to have the same type of mind that they do. So where does this leave us?
Believe it or not, I think the best potential WNBA coach out of the current players would be Aliyah Boston. The Fever superstar has a great mind for the game and is able to explain it really well, has been around enough players and coaches to know when to be serious and when to be light as well as possessing a great temperament on the floor itself. Run me my Natty now and let the rest figure itself out later.
AG asks…If CBA negotiations go past October, do we see players who normally go overseas or don’t play in the off-season (A’ja / CC) joining Unrivaled or AU to stay in the US market and strengthen the WNBPA’s bargaining power? I imagine there would be greater investment in Unrivaled with prolonged negotiations. Or do we see the opposite - players going overseas to cash in and expand their market?
Concerning the best of the best, I don’t think we’ll see A’ja or Caitlin Clark joining an additional league out of any type of solidarity. Wilson herself had a public comment awhile back about how she doesn’t want to see the labor dispute devolve into a work stoppage so I think there are fair questions to be asked about how much weight she’s willing to put behind the cause. She and Clark both can sit back, do community events, play golf, sit courtside at Heat games or whatever else until the matter figures itself out.
The big question I have is whether or not a work stoppage means that Unrivaled decides to test the 5x5 waters instead of remaining a 3x3 league. If the league thinks that they have the ability to make that transformation while remaining financially solvent, then the nature of the labor dispute changes completely. What I’m more interested in is where the new 5x5 league — Upshot and Exalt — fit into the landscape. If Unrivaled takes the biggest stars, do the other two leagues become a refuge for All-Star or rotational WNBA players who don’t get an invite or want to play 3x3.
In any case, I’d be really surprised if we see a mass exodus overseas. In past years it’s been a good option for players solely because of the economics. But outside of Azura Stevens or Gabby Williams, it’s kind of rare that you hear players speak of the European leagues in high regard because they genuinely enjoy being abroad. For a lot of these players, it’s months on another continent, away from your support system, playing a different style of ball in places that might not be particularly excited that you’re there (the racism issue we see in Euro leagues of multiple sports is an underdiscussed issue).
The idea of players expanding their market is an intriguing one but if that were to be the case, I think it’s more likely we’d see them in China or one of the larger population markets than in Europe.