***The Official 2025 WNBA Playoffs Thread***

[MrDollarBills]

Do we have any news on the actual injury and severity for Phee?

It looked horrible and the wheelchair and all that. But is there still any hope that it just looked a lot worse than it was?

Her ankle probably looked like a purple balloon the morning after. I just pray that her knee is intact.

[Doctor MJ]

In addition to the factors that you mention, there would be a personality discount. Forcing her way out of her first WNBA team would not enhance a reputation that was sketchy when she joined the league. For example, there is this quote from a pre-draft article -

"Some of the stuff she does is disrespectful to the game," a general manager said.

This would matter less in the NBA, but in the WNBA, where we have already seen a good player in Chennedy Carter outright blackballed for personality issues, this surely must be considered.

Yeah I have to say that I felt like the hype surrounding Angel in her rookie year - which she earned to be clear - was setting her up for problems.

Coming out of college she was brash and antagonistic as a matter of course, but between the support & success in the college program, and her immediate success in the pros, which led to among other thing, an endorsement with McDonalds, it took the rookie year that would normally humble a player a bit, and made her double and triple down on the individualism.

Then the Sky fall apart last year - not her fault - and you take that same attitude, but now she's getting asked about what's wrong with her team instead of some drama with those outside of the team, and she answers the same way, which is something literally no team anywhere would ever want.

I think it's possible that the Angel-Sky relationship gets mended... but in the long-term, I think that only happens if the team leaps into contending status to give the media something to talk about other than "the Sky aren't going anywhere".

Then there's the matter of other teams being interested. The odds are not zero, but any team looking to acquire her needs to understand and accept that she's out there for herself, and that there's a good chance she'll cause drama if there are any team struggles.

You add to this the factor that until she learns how to actually shoot, her rebounding-focus is not typically the focus of the team's alpha. She's much like Dennis Rodman... but Rodman was never an alpha on the court, rather he was the one who pleased the alphas (Isiah, Jordan) by getting their misses and passing the ball back to them.

I feel like it's entirely possible that Reese eventually exits the WNBA like Liz Cambage did as they have quite a bit in common - plenty of talent, but treating a team sport like an individual sport relationship-wise, which really only works if the team success is sufficient... and we shouldn't forget that Cambage was a core part of a team with the best regular season record which still wasn't enough to keep the devil at bay, while Angel's literally never played on a team that was even mediocre in the W.

I don't think Angel has done anything to be compared to Liz Cambage, who is a legit piece of garbage. That's going too far in my opinion

Someone doesn't have to have all the issues Cambage had to have issues with long-term team relationships. It seems I should have used a different example because of the specific connotations Cambage's name now has, so let me try another example:

I don't believe Shaq's team bouncing was driven by anything so much as his tendency to develop feuds with equals and (nominal) superiors during his playing career. A lesser player with the same tendencies would go through that process more rapidly and essentially "age out" without yet physically aging out.

Cambage represents a player - within the women's game - that is about as close to Shaq as you can get, and so it really took quite a lot of self-sabotage on her part to have her career go - and apparently end - the way it did.

Reese, on the other hand, if she doesn't significantly improve her scoring ability (which I'm not swearing I know will be the case), is a considerably smaller talent than Cambage, and it just doesn't taken anywhere near as much for a beta talent to get kicked to the curb as an alpha talent.

[Doctor MJ]

Not good. Phee is probably done for the rest of the playoffs and Unrivaled season.

Nope not good, and the idea that there was no foul on the play is just crazy.

I think you actually argue they should have called a foul in Phee before the steal for holding AT, and I don’t think what AT did was dirty, but she basically changed direction and ran through Phee as she reached for the (clean) tip.

I understand the idea of it being a loose ball situation - the tip came first - but when you let a bigger stronger player do that without consequence, it’s a recipe for them causing injury to others.

Then you add on top of that that that Phee literally could have fouled out in that play, but she shot no free throws the whole game, while being less physical than the other team is wild.

As I say all of that, AT just seemed to outfox Phee on the regular in the matchup. Steal after steal, it was incredibly impressive. I feel like AT is the smartest player in the W.


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I think that this is incidental contact. The steal was clean. I don't see how Thomas can avoid any of what happened as she was making a direct play on the ball.

I appreciate your response, and this is something I put a good amount of time thinking about and talking to people about.

I take back my statement that there should have been a foul called. By officiating norms, this was a legal play by AT - as well as an extremely impressive play. She so adroitly slide laterally that she was able (reach across Phee's body!) to poke the ball away cleanly before making any other contact with the offensive player, and then she pursued the loose ball perfectly, etc.

But it concerns me that this is the case, and I think the term itself that everyone is using "incidental contact", lets us zoom in very precisely on the issue.

If I go to Merriam-Webster, their 2nd definition of "incidental" is:

2 : occurring merely by chance or without intention or calculation

This is what I think the basketball world is saying AT's action was, and because it was without intent to injure, it is not worth getting in a tizzy over.

But what's the 1st definition?

1 : being likely to ensue as a chance or minor consequence

I would argue that actually under both definitions, AT's action was incidental, except for the whole "minor" assumption of consequence, and that's the problem.

The reason why AT's leg hit Phee's leg is because AT changed her direction of motion when she went for the steal and then continued forward from there into Phee.

Did AT know that by changing direction she was putting herself at a greater chance of collision when she did this? Absolutely.
Did AT know that she was bigger and stronger than the other person and she'd maybe be able to plow through the other person and keep going? Prolly.
But did she break the rules based on norms of interpretation? Apparently not.
Would she have been able to get the loose ball as easily if she'd look to avoid the collision? Nope.
So what's the incentive for AT to avoid running through an opponent in this circumstance? Nothing.

As far as I can tell much of the counter-argument amounts to say that the odds of this are low enough to be consider a "fluke" and thus not something worth considering in officiating norms, and that's the NBA/WNBA's choice to make, but we shouldn't ignore the fact that we can tell when actions are taken that up the likelihood and violence of collisions, and if we aren't incentivized against them, then we're incentivizing stronger players to use this physical advantage they have like they would any other.

[Doctor MJ]

How is this a foul on AT? What am I missing?

That was a gruesome ankle turn by Collier but the incidental contact didn't really cause it. Her getting stripped so cleanly and abruptly did.

So as noted, I'm no longer saying I think it was a foul. That was an imperfect understanding of the norms on my part, and please read above if you want to hear more of where my mind is now.

But I'm not sure what you're thinking when you say the "gruesome ankle turn" was caused by cleanly stripped.

If you watch in slow motion, you'll see that the leg contact immediately precedes the Phee's foot hitting the ground, and we can see quite clearly that AT is supplying torque to Phee's leg that then leads to the ankle turn.

We can debate what refs should call in this situation, but physically, the contact was a direct contributor to the ankle turn.

[Doctor MJ]

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I think that this is incidental contact. The steal was clean. I don't see how Thomas can avoid any of what happened as she was making a direct play on the ball.

Royally sucks.
For Phee who is one of the best human beings on the planet.

This season demanded a Phee-A'ja showdown in the Finals.

I ain't mad at AT getting there, and winning it. I'd love that.

But I worry we're heading towards the Aces destroying the Mercury, and us all wondering what could have been in a Lynx-Aces Finals.

Are we sure the Mercury are gonna get destroyed?

If they win here, they've beaten the former WNBA champions and last year's runner up in consecutive rounds. that's nothing to sneeze at.

It's so hard to win the WNBA championship. This playoffs makes it very clear.

Put me down as someone who doesn't think an Aces win over Mercury is chalk.

I think it's always brutal to beat AT, and this Mercury is considerably better than their RS average would have us believe. The fact that on top of acquiring AT, Satou, Whitcomb & Akoa, they then we're able to add Bonner into the mix mid-season, and all these players (and lone core holdover Copper) are now healthy, seems to now coalescing into a super-defense.

Now, if we just go by what we've seen so far in the post-season, this finals would pit the best defense (Mercury) against the best offense (Aces), but we should remember that in the regular season the Lynx had the best offense.

This then to say, while it makes sense to see A'ja as the apex predator of the W and that she alone will be able to stand up to the Mercury's playoff D, the fact that Phee & co have struggled mightily tells this Mercury team is a proper villain.

[Green Chile]

Heading into this game, the Fever were +4000 to win it all......+4000!

Already in the semi's, already won game 1 on the road heading to another home game.

If they pull this out and win G5, they wouldn't be an easy match-up for the Mercury or Lynx either.

Alas, I'm not a betting man.

[Green Chile]

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I think that this is incidental contact. The steal was clean. I don't see how Thomas can avoid any of what happened as she was making a direct play on the ball.

Royally sucks.
For Phee who is one of the best human beings on the planet.

This season demanded a Phee-A'ja showdown in the Finals.

I ain't mad at AT getting there, and winning it. I'd love that.

But I worry we're heading towards the Aces destroying the Mercury, and us all wondering what could have been in a Lynx-Aces Finals.

Are we sure the Mercury are gonna get destroyed?

If they win here, they've beaten the former WNBA champions and last year's runner up in consecutive rounds. that's nothing to sneeze at.

It's so hard to win the WNBA championship. This playoffs makes it very clear.

Good point. Definitely not sure they'd get destroyed.

At this point, I think we're down to 4 teams you really can't bet against. Even a Phee-less Lynx.

[Shewasfly]

11 free throws IN A QUARTER for Aliyah Boston is absolutely crazy work.

The league wants a game 5 and unless Jackie and A'ja both go crazy in the 4th, they're going to get it.

[BlacJacMac]

11 free throws IN A QUARTER for Aliyah Boston is absolutely crazy work.

That's 9 more FTs than Phee has shot total in the 3 games (and 109 minutes) against Phoenix...

[Green Chile]

Put it on the officials if we want, but AB is a tough match-up for A'ja.

AB had her Playoff breakout game. Kelsey did Kelsey.
Shey lit it up early, and Odyssey lit it up down the stretch.

I don't envy the Aces in Game 5. Should be a doozy.

[Green Chile]

The journey's of Shey Peddy and Odyssey Sims to get here? It's wild, and stuff like that is why I love this league.

[Green Chile]

The white tailed deer looking good early.

[Green Chile]

Masha and Jess looking really good too.

[MrDollarBills]

Royally sucks.
For Phee who is one of the best human beings on the planet.

This season demanded a Phee-A'ja showdown in the Finals.

I ain't mad at AT getting there, and winning it. I'd love that.

But I worry we're heading towards the Aces destroying the Mercury, and us all wondering what could have been in a Lynx-Aces Finals.

Are we sure the Mercury are gonna get destroyed?

If they win here, they've beaten the former WNBA champions and last year's runner up in consecutive rounds. that's nothing to sneeze at.

It's so hard to win the WNBA championship. This playoffs makes it very clear.

Good point. Definitely not sure they'd get destroyed.

At this point, I think we're down to 4 teams you really can't bet against. Even a Phee-less Lynx.

I love the chaos

[Green Chile]

AT starting to kick some ass

[MrDollarBills]

I wonder what the betting odds were for Phoenix to make it to the finals

[Doctor MJ]

The white tailed deer looking good early.

The more I think about it, the more that elk description of A'ja seems weird.

A'ja isn't A'ja because she's the strongest player in the league - Boston is stronger than her for example - but because of her length, agility, and touch.

In general, I think I might say that Indiana & Phoenix are the two strongest teams in the league, and so while calling the Lynx a deer made some sense at the time, in terms of who the Aces will actually have to go through, it's ironic.

Let's see how the elk does against the mooses.

[Doctor MJ]

Man, looking back at that February trade in which the Mercury acquired both AT & Satou is pretty crazy now. They were of course betting on those players being as good as they are playing now, but just the idea that the Mercury finally gave up the ghost on Taurasi-Griner, instantly had a better regular season performance than they'd gotten from Taurasi-Griner since 2014, and have improved from RS to PS, is really something.

[Mephariel]

Man, looking back at that February trade in which the Mercury acquired both AT & Satou is pretty crazy now. They were of course betting on those players being as good as they are playing now, but just the idea that the Mercury finally gave up the ghost on Taurasi-Griner, instantly had a better regular season performance than they'd gotten from Taurasi-Griner since 2014, and have improved from RS to PS, is really something.

How is the Mercury so well run, and the Suns are managed so badly?

[Doctor MJ]

Man, looking back at that February trade in which the Mercury acquired both AT & Satou is pretty crazy now. They were of course betting on those players being as good as they are playing now, but just the idea that the Mercury finally gave up the ghost on Taurasi-Griner, instantly had a better regular season performance than they'd gotten from Taurasi-Griner since 2014, and have improved from RS to PS, is really something.

How is the Mercury so well run, and the Suns are managed so badly?

Similar question for the Lynx & Timberwolves too right? I think the root of these dichotomies tends to be that the owner is getting lucky/unlucky in who he chooses to run the basketball operations with an additional factor of lack of patience (and addition of budget concerns) for NBA teams. There's also luck involved with the players you get access to of course but both NBA franchises had access to outlier talents when they are at their nadir for bad management.