『Five Out: The Ethical Hater's Postseason, A Gamecock Rivalry and Alyssa Thomas's Legacy Moment』のカバーアート

Five Out: The Ethical Hater's Postseason, A Gamecock Rivalry and Alyssa Thomas's Legacy Moment

Five Out: The Ethical Hater's Postseason, A Gamecock Rivalry and Alyssa Thomas's Legacy Moment

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 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 OrganizationTo 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 PostseasonI 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 ...
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