2024 WNBA Season Discussion Thread

[hermes]

new lynx myisha is on the board

[MrDollarBills]

Collier is a beast

[hermes]

wow they gave her that shot?

[hermes]

mcbride organizes the team bbqs

[Ghetto Gospel]

Aren't post ups viewed as inefficient shots analytics wise?

Very much so in the NBA. I haven't seen any studies of the WNBA, though.

So in general I've enjoyed the progression of this topic with you two and GG. My impression of things:

- Post-up do seem to be more efficient relatively in the WNBA compared to the NBA based on the volume & efficiency we've continued to see from players known for posting - Sylvia Fowles was a lock for well over 60% TS until the day she retired.

- But I think we've still generally see evidence that perimeter-led attacks are better for elite offense than interior-led attacks, and I'd note that this parallels the NBA prior to the modern era. Even before the shooting efficiency of post-ups fell off, the effectiveness of relying upon them as the focal point of your offense generally didn't work. There were of course players who were extremely effective leading teams in that role, but perimeter-led offenses have mostly been the dominant force ever since they widened the key to slow down Mikan.

- To elaborate on what I see as the fundamental problem with looking at shooting efficiency as the way to judge volume post-ups: The post-up scorer typically needs the ball delivered to them in a narrow band of places for them to go to work, and the defense knows this. So the defense can focus not just on defending the player once they get the ball, but in keeping the player from getting the ball when they are in their preferred position.

- Circling back to the WNBA being in the era where post-offense looks efficient by common metrics: I'd say so long as this remains the case, you're going to have folks who cling to more of an old-school paradigm. I'd say, for example, that the "death" of the post-up in the NBA accelerated not so much when it stopped being a wise approach, but when it become so much worse of an approach that it lost the superficial statistical advantage it had previously had.

- And it's possible this will never be the case in the WNBA. I'm not going to claim a definitive statement here, but I think that shotblocking in general is something that becomes a bigger deal in basketball with height, and we haven't actually seen the WNBA get dramatically taller in the past 25 years. If we go look at the highest season BPG seasons it's utterly dominated by two woman (Margo Dydek & Brittney Griner) who to this day remain utter outliers in a sport where 6'4" makes you a "big".

- That said, I don't see the trend toward 3-point shooting hitting a wall soon in the WNBA, and the Clark phenomenon will accelerate matters. In the end if shooters become adept enough from outside, 3>2.

just a couple of comments on this, while i do agree with you that improved and more 3-point shooting should be the future of the WNBA, but in the present, a lot of teams just don't have shooters. much has been discussed of the sky having no shooting and that being the reason for their ugly offense, but honestly, half the teams in the league don't really have good shooters and have not so great offenses. though many would think the sky have the worst 3-point shooting in the league, it's actually the storm and collectively they're under 30% for the year.

i personally think the idea of an efficient offense at this moment in time is a bit of a fantasy and i don't think it's even limited to the WNBA. even in the NBA, i know in the knicks board, it's constantly discussed how we need a stretch 5 that can also protect the paint, but they just don't exist. i think finding really large human beings that are also athletic enough to defend, but also talented enough to shoot is just a really rare commodity.

i liken it to passing offenses in the NFL. these days, the ideal is to have/find a QB that can get the ball out quick to take pressure off the o-line and elevate the receiving core, so resources can get allocated to defense. the reality is, these kinds of players are unicorns and are so rare that it can't just be a blueprint that can be copied and pasted the way the chiefs did from the patriots. i don't think finding guards like caitlin clark that can create good offense across the hs and college ranks will be so easily possible such that things will shift so quickly there.

i think having big ass girls that are like 6'3+ that can bully girls down low in hs and college will continue to dominate and be the winning formula because there just aren't that many big girls at those levels. they'll continue to work them in the post because that is perhaps the most efficient way to play at that particular level and will lead to wins and thus job security and money for the coaches involved. the popularity of the sport would need to grow multi-fold (it is at the moment, but i think it will take a long time [years, maybe decades] for the WNBA to reap those rewards) for the entirety of the metagame to shift.

[hermes]

fairly small lineup right now, i think collier is the tallest out there right now for the lynx

[jc23]

Read on Twitter

remind me to watch this

[hermes]

tiffany hayes was wearing some real wild fur pants

super baggy

[hermes]

lot of offense tonight, shot are falling

[hermes]

myisha is a good rebounder

[hermes]

lynx are en fuego

[hermes]

quick few points for the aces and we've got a game

[hermes]

so much for that, lynx shut that down quick

[hermes]

aces have the mvp but wilson hasn't been very involved tonight

[cdubbz]

aces have the mvp but wilson hasn't been very involved tonight

Was just about to post this.

The Aces were down 8-12 points with 6 minutes left in the game and went 8-9 possessions with A'ja Wilson NOT TOUCHING THE BALL ON OFFENSE. That is crazy. Literally 8-9 possessions of not even touching the ball. What's going on?

[hermes]

yay lynx win!

[Doctor MJ]

the issue is when defense clamps down and is playing well, it's hard to get the good efficient shots like layups and 3s, so sometimes you gotta "settle" for the mid-range or the post-up. you take the best that you can get basically

I don't actually think you get to settle for post-ups in the typical case. You have to work to feed the post-up artist, and against crunch time defense that's harder and harder, which is why clutch scoring is basically always dominated by those who can operate on the perimeter.

But yeah, the mid-range is absolutely where settling happens. You want to be able to hit those shots, but if you're taking them, the defense has already won a major battle.

i will readily admit that i was thinking strictly about jokic and embiid here as they are the only 2 real true post-up artists left in the nba and in most cases it usually isn't ideal to post these guys up afaik unless they have a huge mismatch.

could be fake news because i'm not looking at the stats and only by eye test, i feel like in crunch time, i always see jokic working down there on the block late in the 4th quarter when both the game and defense is tight. i feel like it used to be jamal murray taking more of those shots but not so much anymore..? could be wrong idk

Right but Jokic is a completely different animal than anyone else.

- Better shooting touch.
- Better awareness and passing feel.
- The ability to handle the ball in the perimeter.
- The ability to work himself gradually into better positions by a series of defense distorting passes.

Basically none of this is stuff you can expect from a typical post-up big in any era, and it has everything to do with why the rules don't apply to him.

Embiid is having a lot of success too, but he's far less likely to make his FGAs than Jokic, and shoots less FGAs from 10 feet & closer. Embiid's advantage is getting to the free line about twice as often as Jokic, which involves flopping like crazy and relying on refs to feel compelled to blow the whistle.

[Doctor MJ]

Very much so in the NBA. I haven't seen any studies of the WNBA, though.

So in general I've enjoyed the progression of this topic with you two and GG. My impression of things:

- Post-up do seem to be more efficient relatively in the WNBA compared to the NBA based on the volume & efficiency we've continued to see from players known for posting - Sylvia Fowles was a lock for well over 60% TS until the day she retired.

- But I think we've still generally see evidence that perimeter-led attacks are better for elite offense than interior-led attacks, and I'd note that this parallels the NBA prior to the modern era. Even before the shooting efficiency of post-ups fell off, the effectiveness of relying upon them as the focal point of your offense generally didn't work. There were of course players who were extremely effective leading teams in that role, but perimeter-led offenses have mostly been the dominant force ever since they widened the key to slow down Mikan.

- To elaborate on what I see as the fundamental problem with looking at shooting efficiency as the way to judge volume post-ups: The post-up scorer typically needs the ball delivered to them in a narrow band of places for them to go to work, and the defense knows this. So the defense can focus not just on defending the player once they get the ball, but in keeping the player from getting the ball when they are in their preferred position.

- Circling back to the WNBA being in the era where post-offense looks efficient by common metrics: I'd say so long as this remains the case, you're going to have folks who cling to more of an old-school paradigm. I'd say, for example, that the "death" of the post-up in the NBA accelerated not so much when it stopped being a wise approach, but when it become so much worse of an approach that it lost the superficial statistical advantage it had previously had.

- And it's possible this will never be the case in the WNBA. I'm not going to claim a definitive statement here, but I think that shotblocking in general is something that becomes a bigger deal in basketball with height, and we haven't actually seen the WNBA get dramatically taller in the past 25 years. If we go look at the highest season BPG seasons it's utterly dominated by two woman (Margo Dydek & Brittney Griner) who to this day remain utter outliers in a sport where 6'4" makes you a "big".

- That said, I don't see the trend toward 3-point shooting hitting a wall soon in the WNBA, and the Clark phenomenon will accelerate matters. In the end if shooters become adept enough from outside, 3>2.

just a couple of comments on this, while i do agree with you that improved and more 3-point shooting should be the future of the WNBA, but in the present, a lot of teams just don't have shooters. much has been discussed of the sky having no shooting and that being the reason for their ugly offense, but honestly, half the teams in the league don't really have good shooters and have not so great offenses. though many would think the sky have the worst 3-point shooting in the league, it's actually the storm and collectively they're under 30% for the year.

i personally think the idea of an efficient offense at this moment in time is a bit of a fantasy and i don't think it's even limited to the WNBA. even in the NBA, i know in the knicks board, it's constantly discussed how we need a stretch 5 that can also protect the paint, but they just don't exist. i think finding really large human beings that are also athletic enough to defend, but also talented enough to shoot is just a really rare commodity.

i liken it to passing offenses in the NFL. these days, the ideal is to have/find a QB that can get the ball out quick to take pressure off the o-line and elevate the receiving core, so resources can get allocated to defense. the reality is, these kinds of players are unicorns and are so rare that it can't just be a blueprint that can be copied and pasted the way the chiefs did from the patriots. i don't think finding guards like caitlin clark that can create good offense across the hs and college ranks will be so easily possible such that things will shift so quickly there.

i think having big ass girls that are like 6'3+ that can bully girls down low in hs and college will continue to dominate and be the winning formula because there just aren't that many big girls at those levels. they'll continue to work them in the post because that is perhaps the most efficient way to play at that particular level and will lead to wins and thus job security and money for the coaches involved. the popularity of the sport would need to grow multi-fold (it is at the moment, but i think it will take a long time [years, maybe decades] for the WNBA to reap those rewards) for the entirety of the metagame to shift.

I think bringing up the shockingly shocking combination of women a) taking way less 3's, b) doing so at a way worse %, c) despite playing with a shorter line, is an incredibly important thing for folks to be looking at, so I think you have your finger on the pulse there.

The lesser 3Pr isn't actually that egregious. Go back to about '16-17 and the NBA was shooting at about this rate, so the WNBA is just a bit behind the curve on that front.

But the men have made 3's at a considerably higher rate for longer than that, and I think that's the thing to really dwell on. I'm personally skeptical that

a) the distance of the 3-point shot is something that is just too much for woman
b) girls haven't been practicing 3's like crazy - in my experience the kids are trying to shoot like Steph and have been for years

I think part of what we're seeing here is the delayed arrival of better shooters because women's basketball programs at all levels are still clinging to more old school ways, but I'm inclined to believe that if that's all that's going on, it's only a matter of time before the old school gatekeepers are gone.

However, I do find myself wondering if having a shorter 3-point line actually makes 3's less valuable to teams, because players who shoot right at the line are a) easier to run out to contest, and b) they don't provide the same spacing as a longer 3.

Ironically, I think it's possible the very fact that the 3 is closer in the women's game makes it backfire to some degree, and that the solution to this may end up being players learning to just ignore the line, and let it fly from farther out.

Incidentally, I'm somehow who basically thinks that the only changes that should be made from the men's to the women's game are a) a smaller ball, and b) 40 minute games.

I'm for the smaller ball because you can still play on the same court, and it allows the women to handle the ball like the men.
I'm for 40 minute games because that's what the whole world does except for the NBA.

Beyond that, kids grow up playing on the basketball courts available to them, and in a traditional school yard that means 10-foot rim. If kids can play on that rim, than so can anyone, and the idea of lowering the rim to get more dunks is people fooling themselves about why they don't watch.

They don't watch the women because they largely don't really watch the men either. They follow the box score and highlights, and when they do watch, they watch the ball. When you focus more on the way the 5 players are playing together, the different levels of the game look more similar than different.

Re: "they'll continue to work them in the post because that is perhaps the most efficient way to play at that particular level and will lead to wins". So yeah, I don't agree that it's clear cut that this is what's leading to wins.

Who has the best offense in the league? The Liberty.
How did they do it? By jacking more 3's than anyone else despite the fact they have two former MVPs with bully-bodies.

Obviously you can't just jack 3's without quality shooters, but you're also not going to have quality shooters unless you prioritize acquiring and training such shooters.

[MrDollarBills]

Read on Twitter

remind me to watch this

Oh, don't worry. We'll probably have a thread for NCAAW

[MrDollarBills]

aces have the mvp but wilson hasn't been very involved tonight

Was just about to post this.

The Aces were down 8-12 points with 6 minutes left in the game and went 8-9 possessions with A'ja Wilson NOT TOUCHING THE BALL ON OFFENSE. That is crazy. Literally 8-9 possessions of not even touching the ball. What's going on?

The Aces have been dysfunctional for awhile now. I think back to that moment where A'ja was pissed that the team was running to get selfies with Usher after a loss and that was probably a huge red flag.