Man, has this WNBA postseason delivered. Every game night it feels like we get some new piece of drama, some legacy performances and matchups that go down to the wire. Much like the bars Stefon would recommend on Saturday Night Live, these playoffs have everything. Maybe even Dan Cortese. Who’s to say?

Our Playoffathon coverage continues over on YouTube where you can subscribe to our channel. We are live every night after each playoff game and will be doubling down as we head into the WNBA Finals at the end of this week. Who will meet the Phoenix Mercury there? That will be decided on Tuesday when the Indiana Fever and Las Vegas Aces play a win-or-go-home game in Michelob Ultra Arena. It doesn’t get any better than this and, to add on to the craziness that has been the WNBA postseason, the NCAA women’s basketball season starts in just over a month as well.

So if you’re considering signing up for our paid subscription tier, which gives you access to our Discord chat, exclusive content and Boots on the Ground features, you won’t be losing a thing when the W is done. We just move right into the next season because the basketball never stops.

Now, onto the column!

1. The Mercury Deserve Their Flowers As An Organization

To quote the venerable Dril, ‘under no circumstances do you gotta hand to them’. But in this case you do, in fact, have to hand it to Mat Ishbia.

What’s fascinating is that you can be from Phoenix and have two totally different opinions of the debutante owner depending on which basketball team you follow more closely. In a lot of ways, Ishbia feels somewhat reminiscent of James Dolan and his ownership of the New York Knicks and New York Rangers. As a fan, it’s felt that whichever of the two teams Dolan is more hands-off with is the team that ends up being more successful. While Ishbia has spent much of his tenure with the Suns appearing to meddle in the day-to-day affairs of the NBA franchise, he’s kept a relatively low profile in the W, writing the checks and allowing the Mercury to run smoothly.

That’s resulted in a state-of-the-art team facility that was able to play a role in attracting free agents like Satou Sabally and Alyssa Thomas. It’s also given General Manager Nick U’Ren, the Ball-Knower’s Executive of the Year, the latitude to build out the team as he sees fit. Trading for Thomas and Sabally was a masterstroke but, perhaps more importantly, it all came together in year one. It’s exceedingly rare in this league where free-agent or trade-driven superstar cores gel like this immediately. New York made it to the WNBA Finals in their first season with Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones but it took until 2024 for them to look the part of a champion. Seattle’s microwaved championship core never made it to the Finals before Noelle Quinn was let go as head coach. Shoot, even L.A., Dallas and Chicago, who tried to load up with veterans to hunt for a playoff spot, ended up not living up to their billing.

Yet somehow in Phoenix, where the offense runs through Alyssa Thomas in a way relatively unique in the W’s history, they are four wins away from a title. There may be a lot of flaws in Mat Ishbia as an owner. His organization has dealt with a few different lawsuits and now is on the receiving end of a slew of not-so-rosy stories about allegedly forcing employees to sign paperwork effectively waiving their right to sue for anything. The Suns look like a bit of a clown show and had to deal away Kevin Durant after a nothingburger of a tenure. And yet, things look about as good as they can on the women’s side of things. They flipped over their roster completely with a coach who has proven to be one of the better in-game tacticians in the league while also making the needed investments to compete.

If you choose to look at this with a glass half full mindset, it is a great precedent and signal to the next set of expansion teams coming into the league. Basically, if you invest appropriately, you too can be a Golden State, a Phoenix, Las Vegas or New York. The teams that are putting their money where their mouths are happen to be the ones succeeding. For a league and a sport that has been saying that investment will lead to success for over two decades, it’s nice to see that axiom be proven true time and time again.

2. Alyssa Thomas Is Having Her Legacy Postseason

I know that Alyssa Thomas and her play style aren’t for everyone. It’s important to note that that indeed is okay. To me, the more play styles you have in a sports league, the more interesting things can be from a schematic perspective. College football fans may hate to see a triple option or flexbone team but I sure love to see coaches try to figure it out. In the same vein, there just aren’t a lot of WNBA teams running inverted pick-and-roll with a physically gifted power forward who is a regular triple-double threat. It’s fair for some people to not enjoy the shoulder checks or the bull rushes down the floor. But I feel that it adds something to the game and forces great players and coaches to do something different. It can get to a point where it’s not so fun and that’s something that falls at the feet of officials (more on that in a moment).

I write that long preamble to say that we can’t discount Alyssa Thomas when all is said and done. Would it be fun if she had a more consistent jumper? Sure. But what the 33 year old Mercury superstar is doing this postseason is everything most of her detractors have been asking for for years. In this last semifinals series, Thomas averaged 20.5 points, 8.25 rebounds, 9.5 assists and 2.5 steals per game on 51% shooting from the field. For starters, those are MVP caliber counting stats. But beyond that, it shows a new willingness to shoulder the scoring load for her team. In past years, we’ve gotten 20+ point bursts out of AT but most playoff matchups had her finishing with anywhere between 13 and 18 points. This time around, Thomas is more than willing to go to the basket, try to get calls and feel comfortable taking it herself in crunch time. Usually when we’re assessing players at the MVP caliber level or higher, we like to see that extra gear in the playoffs. Something of a takeover gene, if you will.

This season, Thomas has given us that effort and what we’ve been treated to is a totally different player than who we typically see in the playoffs. Don’t believe me? I quite literally compared AT to Rudy Gobert earlier this year, remarking that they’re similar in that they can own a regular season but have clearly exploitable deficiencies come the playoffs. These last two weeks, the Mercury’s star forward has shut me up good.

If Phoenix manages to go the distance, it completely changes how we talk about Thomas and her impact in the WNBA. On some level, it’s reductive to distill legacy down into whether or not you win rings, but I do think part of winning championships as a superstar level player involves you having to find that gear of greatness. So far, AT has given us that gear and even a bit more. Regardless of how the Finals go, I do hope that Thomas finishes the season with a few more fans on her bandwagon. Count me among them. It’s been a phenomenal playoff run and deserves its flowers even while it’s happening.

3. A Gamecock Rivalry And Building The Hate Ethically

Here at No Cap Space, we often joke about this concept of ethical and unethical hate. As Chauny describes it, “Ethical hate is letting people know up front where you stand so if they choose to engage that’s on them. Basically a heads up that this argument isn’t being made in the the best faith so proceed with caution.”

In essence, knowing where the lines are between playful banter and personal attacks. If you’re someone who thinks they have a good concept of where that line is (which is the vast majority of fans, to be clear), then this postseason was tailor made for you. For the most part, a lot of the banter between teams has been relatively low impact in terms of depth. Napheesa Collier’s injury does cast a pall over some of this but generally, the beef all feels pretty self contained to basketball. Within that, I think we can all afford to let things be fun for a second. Take A’ja Wilson and Aliyah Boston, for instance. I love the fact that the four-time-and-reigning back-to-back MVP is airing out a former Gamecock heir apparent about a perceived special whistle. It’s great to see an up and coming superstar not scared at all of incurring the wrath of one of the faces of the game. These are good things that foster good discourse around the game. There is always a conversation to be had around some of the more specific ways sports and culture intersect and how they power public opinion. We should welcome those takes and critical views of the things we enjoy.

At the same time, however, we should be allowed to indulge in the sheer competition of it all. There are legacies on the line here and it feels like both Wilson and Boston know that. There is the connective tissue of South Carolina and Dawn Staley. There’s Wilson’s own hero’s journey that is woefully underdiscussed even though it underscores how remarkable her ascent has actually been. And then there’s Boston who, since a cruel-at-best-coded-at-worst framing as soft and a crier, has stepped into her power and embraced the title of tough player to go against. Everything that we like in sports is here. The drama, the backstory, the human emotions that power superhuman athletic performances culminating in an ending that is truly unknown to us until the moment it happens. This is the exact type of thing the WNBA has been asking for and it’s been delivered organically. Is it the size of the other rivalries the league office seems to prize? Maybe not. But it’s certainly a healthy foundation with which to build upon.

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