2024 WNBA Season Discussion Thread

[MrDollarBills]

Great win to head into the break for the Libs!

Rich I feel like we can do it. I'm not gonna jynx us but.....we are literally 10 players deep.

[MrDollarBills]

That was a hard 17 and 6 for CC. Minnesota was on her ass all game.

Yep, that was some tough, aggressive defense. Plus, the Lynx almost entirely shut down the Fever's fast break. Given that, the Fever have to be delighted that they scored a league-average 81 points.

Also, it was good to see the elite version of Aliyah Boston. I didn't turn on the WNBA until this season (yeah, me and about 1 million others), so I missed her rookie season, which was statistically stronger than this one. Instead, I have seen a lot of games where Boston has been stuffed at the rim and looking pretty ordinary. But she was fabulous on Sunday. That was the player whom have been expecting to see.

Haha I've been telling yall for months now, AB is a flat out star. Love her!

[MrDollarBills]

Looks like my girl Chen abused the ACES last night. She is the illest on the low. Best off the dribble guard in the WNBA.

Best first step in the W as well.

Carter is elite. I don't wanna hear anything else

[MrDollarBills]

A'ja was not amused with her team last night

Watch on YouTube

[Ice Man]

A'ja was not amused with her team last night

Watch on YouTube

I wan't quite sure about whom she was speaking, because it seemed like the pic was with a guy, but I do like her crankiness. You're not supposed to be happy when a team with a losing record comes into your arena and kicks your tail.

[Rich Rane]

Great win to head into the break for the Libs!

Rich I feel like we can do it. I'm not gonna jynx us but.....we are literally 10 players deep.

Hmm let's just pray Betnijah is out there and ready after the Olympics.

[MrDollarBills]

Great win to head into the break for the Libs!

Rich I feel like we can do it. I'm not gonna jynx us but.....we are literally 10 players deep.

Hmm let's just pray Betnijah is out there and ready after the Olympics.

4 weeks I heard we need her

[MrDollarBills]

A'ja was not amused with her team last night

Watch on YouTube

I wan't quite sure about whom she was speaking, because it seemed like the pic was with a guy, but I do like her crankiness. You're not supposed to be happy when a team with a losing record comes into your arena and kicks your tail.

Her teammates apparently went to take pictures with Usher immediately after the loss.

She's right.

[Ice Man]

Her teammates apparently went to take pictures with Usher immediately after the loss.

Ah, got it. I love it. I could see Mike saying the very same thing.

[hermes]

early game today, go lynx!

[cupcakesnake]

Looks like my girl Chen abused the ACES last night. She is the illest on the low. Best off the dribble guard in the WNBA.

Best first step in the W as well.

Carter is elite. I don't wanna hear anything else

Can't believe how often her blow bys reduce defenders to just chasing her.

[hermes]

these kids are loud

[MrDollarBills]

these kids are loud

Is this on national TV or local?

[hermes]

these kids are loud

Is this on national TV or local?

local i think

[hermes]

we only have the one superstar so with phee out, we don't really have anyone that can just take the ball and go score when the offense is in a rut

[hermes]

does the nba do kids day or something similar?

[jumpman28]

Its Chen team and she is the main star imo, but I agree you would not know cause Angel gets the coverage like she is the best on the team.

That's my take. She's the team's SGA, with Reese, Cardoso, and Mabrey all being useful complementary players. (If they were better than just "useful," the Sky would have a winning record.)

This is what I see also, in the Sky's two most impressive wins recently (Storm and Aces) Carter carried them offensively ending on over 50% shooting from the field which is pretty incredible considering she took over 20 shots in both of those games.

[hermes]

dream shooting really well but turnovers are keeping us in it

[hermes]

dorka!

[Doctor MJ]

Probably a discussion for another thread, but I don't think there's a real argument for Taurasi as the GOAT. She's definitely one of the most famous W players, and she's at least built herself a longevity argument (14x all-W, 20 season career). She's won 3 championships, but only once as the clear-cut best player on the team (Cappie Pondexter and Britney Griner). She's won 1 MVP.

I don't think she quite stacks up against Lisa Leslie, Candace Parker, Cynthia Cooper, Tamika Catchings, Sheryl Swoopes, Lauren Jackson, the prime of Maya Moore, or the rapid climb of A'ja Wilson (and possibly Stewie). Taurasi has an argument against a few of these names, but I'd push back on someone having her at the top of this list. I think when people get more into historical projects that factor in impact, Taurasi's case will be more suspect because it's so reliant on her scoring. She's sort of the W's version of Kobe in that she was the face of the league and chosen hero for a while, but deep dive analysis makes it kinda tough to make a GOAT case.

I'll be very interested to see how folks here end up seeing Taurasi compared to some of these other players. The way Taurasi got singled out by official sources as the GOAT always seemed so strange to me.

I will say that I have her pretty easily ahead of Parker though, and the young players in general aren't quite wear they will eventually be with longevity.

I think we've talked a little bit about Parker before. If it's pure scoring primacy, Taurasi is obviously superior in this regard. The Sparks struggled with offense for most of the Parker era, until Nneka joined the team and gave them a more resilient scoring option.

I look at Parker's defense, all-around play, and longevity. Those are the things that have me starting with the assumption Parker>Taurasi. (Keep in mind, it's not like I've gone hard on WNBA historical analysis, so I don't have ironclad opinions on player rankings at this point in time). Parker averaged 2.3 blocks and 1.5 steals and won MVP in her rookie season. Injuries sapped her rare vertical ability (and took away some of her young prime seasons), but she remained one of the WNBA's most versatile defenders, and that ability aged like a fine wine. Parker really won me over after her prime though, as she continued to crank out season after season of strong playmaking and elite defense. I like late-career Parker so much better than late-career Taurasi.

I was always meh on her scoring game, so after she stopped being a #1 option, I thought it really popped that that was never the important part of her game.

First off I'll say it's good that you and I have some starting disagreements. We're going to need folks to get in cordial debates in order to propel our collective understanding forward.

I want to emphasize right now something where I agree with you on: Parker's collection of abilities allowed her to transition later in her career to something of an over-powered role player. It was glorious, and certainly far more valuable than a post-prime Taurasi.

My skepticism toward Parker is more about her never being able to live up in peak impact to what her collection of abilities implied that she could.

Something of a tangent here, ESPN is going through their top athletes of the 21st century so far. Now, we should never take these lists too seriously when they involve comparisons between different sports, but within a sport, the ordering is a great starting point for meaningful debate.

So far they've unveiled 26-100. Here are the women's basketball players they've listed:

34. Tamika Catchings
36. Maya Moore
60. Candace Parker
74. Lisa Leslie
81. Sheryl Swoopes
84. Lauren Jackson
90. A'ja Wilson

I expect Taurasi will be in that Top 25. It will be interesting to see if any other woman is - Breanna Stewart? Sue Bird? Neither seem like they should be Top 25 to me, but frankly it would be weird if neither made Top 100.

Now, there is something of a tricky thing when talking about Parker relative to Leslie & Swoopes, because Leslie & Swoopes became Olympic stars in 1996, and played 3 years of WNBA ball before the 21st century. Perhaps that's what's holding them back over Parker...

but what about Jackson? Jackson was just plain better than Parker as a star, and while people might thing "Parker has longevity thought!", Jackson still has more WNBA Win Shares than Parker (or anyone else the above list except Catchings).

To me this is the sort of thing that shows that lists like this - which I always enjoy, just to be clear - tend to operate in a first sorting by something other than in-sport greatness. Parker's ahead of Jackson because Parker feels more prominent to the cross-sport cohort that's making these choices, not because a detailed analysis of her success makes her look more impressive than Jackson.

I'll also note that in my recollection, when Parker entered the WNBA Draft she was seen as the best prospect of the WNBA era, but I really don't see any argument that she lived up to that even leaving Taurasi aside, because of the 2001 draft duo of Jackson & Catchings.