What a week, huh…
For those that are just finding us at No Cap Space through yesterday’s column on Angel Reese and the Chicago Sky (which you can read here in case you missed it), welcome! We’re a collective of five journalists, each with our own backgrounds in local TV/newspapers/digital, covering women’s basketball the way we feel it ought to be covered. Whether you’re just joining us or you’ve been a Ball-Knower for a while, we’re glad to have you in our community all the same.
If you missed any of our Sunday wrap show on YouTube, you can access it at this link or listen to it in podcast form above.
Five Out is a weekly column that runs every Monday here, touching on five big things that caught my attention in the last seven days. It can be things on, off or around the floor. And this past week, there was plenty of action everywhere to make a nice, meaty Monday column.
Let’s get to it…
1. Indiana Has Somehow Built A Culture With Caitlin Clark On The Bench.
Despite winning a WNBA championship in 2012 and pushing a legendary Minnesota Lynx to a Game 5 in 2015, the Indiana Fever have been in the wilderness for the better part of a decade. Draft picks didn’t pan out, coaches didn’t work and there just seemed to be a collective shrug by everyone in the league that “yeah, I guess Indiana kind of stinks now.”
Kelsey Mitchell stuck it out through the worst of this era while Aliyah Boston joined up in 2023 after being drafted first overall. The expectation in 2024 was that Caitlin Clark would take this team to the playoffs and she did. But there was still a lingering question among longtime WNBA media about whether or not the Fever remembered how to win as an organization.
Given everything they faced this year, on and off the floor, I think it’s fair to say that that dormant institutional knowledge came back to the forefront this year and has powered an improbable playoff run while their superstar has nursed one of the trickiest injuries in sports. Indiana managed to stay afloat amid turmoil, turnover and trades and have clearly built a culture that is sustainable with or without Caitlin Clark on the floor. They managed to navigate the disaster that was the DeWanna Bonner signing and exit, kept their heads afloat as guard after guard went down with injury and relied on their stars — Mitchell and Boston — to live up to their draft status and prove they could establish a playoff floor without Clark in the mix. The fact that they accomplished that should make any Fever fan optimistic about the future when their star guard comes back fully healthy.
There were plenty of times this year where the team could’ve fractured, packed it in or started to look towards the paycheck that the 2026 offseason promises. Instead, Stephanie White managed to keep the core together, Clark remained an active participant from the bench and the team coalesced around each other in a way that indicates they are built to last. If you’re a fan of Clark and are invested in her success, this is the best case scenario. Not only is it clear that she has a playoff team around her, it also indicates the organization is built and prepared to do what they need to do to maximize her window. That’s all you can really ask for from any organization. Some do, some don’t. But we all see the difference when it’s done right versus when it’s not.
2. Balhalla Is A Story of Success In Sports and Finding Joy In Resilience
Is there a better sports story this summer than Balhalla? The Golden State Valkyries, an expansion team with no superstars to speak of, operating on heart and guided by a Coach of the Year contender, have captured the hearts of WNBA everywhere. You couldn’t write a script more heartwarming than this. There’s Natalie Nakase, finally getting her first opportunity to run a team as one of the first Asian-American head coaches in the league’s history in a region with a deep and proud AAPI heritage. There’s journeywomen like Veronica Burton who have proven themselves to be legitimate starters in this league. There’s also international youngsters like Carla Leite and Iliana Rupert who are displaying just how global the game is becoming. And then you have Ballhalla.
Hail, Balhalla.
From the very beginning, Golden State’s management made a concerted effort to strike out on their own. It would’ve been extremely easy to try and lean into their connection to the Warriors and try to peel off the NBA fanbase that already exists in the Bay. Instead, the Valkyries let their own fans lead the way. San Francisco’s vibrant and historically significant LGBTQ+ population have been a driving force in building ‘Balhalla’ into an inclusive, fun, lighthearted and generally great fanbase. Everyone on the ground says that the atmosphere of Valks games is very different relative to the Warriors, and that may be a good thing. Our buddy maya goldberg-safir over at the wonderful rough notes had it pegged early on, writing the following about Balhalla back in June…
I can’t wait to better understand how these ‘vibes’ turn into memories, into traditions, into lore. Who will be our Heroes and Villains? Will whimsical fans start to stack rocks at select points along the route to Chase, like warriors marking the trail through Bay Area traffic? What love stories will unfold on the super gay Valkyries ferry? How far will our enthusiasm take us, and will fans ever chafe at the business decisions of this corporate league, betrayed to find it’s not actually the Bay Area’s latest grassroots community collective?
Chef’s Kiss.
Three months since that travelogue was published, Balhalla has already started to answer these questions. Sports, and the business alongside it, is all done in the shadow of capitalism. Just ask Liberty fans. But ultimately, we as fans find love in the small things. In the escape, the adrenaline of a buzzer beater or the anxiety of a final possession. It’s what makes us feel alive amid the unrelenting nihilism that permeates our current moment. As Dan Savage once wrote, it’s the dance that keeps you in the fight because it’s the dance you’re fighting for.
Golden State’s story is one of business and sporting success, sure. But it’s also a wonderful story about the cultivation of a fanbase — be they LGBTQ+, a Person of Color, or a mix of both — that dances all night amid unrelenting attacks on many of their personhoods. In every way, they’re worth rooting for, and I plan on doing that this postseason. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone that isn’t.
3. A’ja Wilson Is Having A Legacy Moment.
A’ja Wilson wanted that game against Minnesota. You don’t need to be an insider to know that. Becky Hammon came into the pregame press conference feeling loose and ready to engage with the press in the way that I personally really enjoy.
In her pregame press conference last Thursday, I asked her how she balances the idea of wanting to win this game while also knowing A’ja’s MVP case can be bolstered by a good individual game.
“Are you a voter?”, she asked me.
“I am not, which is why I have no skin in this and can ask you right now,” I quipped back.
What came next was a Becky Hammon special, in which she referenced Wilson playing hotter than a Wingstop frying pan, praising the chain’s fries and ranch while dropping this gem of a quote.
“I think at the beginning of every year, every voter starts with ‘who is better than A’ja Wilson?’”, she said.
It’s a good question, one worth a legit discussion up until about two days ago. The tricky thing about this year’s MVP race is that Napheesa Collier hasn’t necessarily done anything to lose the award. She’s been consistent and on top of her game in every matchup she plays in. When Phee is off the floor, the Lynx are still a top four unit but with her, they’re a finals team that borders on a different level of greatness. There’s just one problem.
When A’ja Wilson is on and her team is clicking, the Aces are the same kind of team.
You can argue there’s a recency bias in what A’ja is doing but a 14 game sample in which the Aces haven’t lost a single game is a little bit more than making a snap judgement based on one individual matchup at the end of the year. Was it a symbolic statement to the world that Vegas dominated Minnesota in T-Mobile Arena with Wilson completely taking over the game to the tune of 31 points and 8 rebounds? Sure. But to try and water it down to recency bias over one game discounts the run Wilson has been on since the All-Star break.
In the 19 games since the league returned to play, Wilson has averaged 24.7 points, 10.9 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.5 steals and 2.1 blocks per game on 52% shooting from the field.
Not bad, right?
And even with Wilson’s performance in June, a below-average-by-her-standards month in which she averaged 20.4 points and 9.1 rebounds on 40.6% shooting, you can probably throw that out alongside the games Collier missed due to injury. If that’s an equalizer, then who would you say has been better this season across the sample?
I understand that there may be some degree of fatigue, a desire to see Collier finally get her recognition and moment for the player that she’s become. But we can’t let the need for sharing the spotlight obfuscate the obvious fact: A’ja Wilson is in the midst of the type of moment that creates all-time legacies. This is an MVP run, a 14 game win streak that has completely turned around the fortunes of the Aces as a franchise. They looked dead in June, a formerly great team that won a pair of championships before age and the rest of the league caught up. Instead of going quietly into that night, Wilson pulled her team together, started to play at a level we simply don’t see often (if ever) in the WNBA and now Las Vegas looks like they could be a contender to win title number three.
That’s greatness. The kind of greatness that we tell our kids about when we’re old. It would be malpractice to watch it pass by in the moment and not understand its significance. Might it result in Wilson’s fourth MVP, a feat never accomplished in this league before? Perhaps. But, more importantly, it’s a legacy run that asserts Wilson as a potential Greatest of All Time contender. Appreciate it when it happens because they don’t come around often.
4. The Politicians Are Getting Involved With Connecticut’s Fight To Keep The Sun…
This morning, United States senator Richard Blumenthal sent a letter to the WNBA regarding a “reported interference in the Mohegan Tribe’s negotiations with competing bidders for the ownership of the Connecticut Sun women’s basketball team and to warn that any attempts by the WNBA to block efforts to keep the Sun in Connecticut could violate federal antitrust laws.”
This news comes on the heels of a report that the state of Connecticut is considering trying to buy a minority stake in the team to keep it within the state. How might that work? According to WTNH, the state could make an investment in the team through their multibillion-dollar pension funds. So far, the discussions haven’t gone any further than that but the fact that we now have political influence on two ends to keep the Sun in Connecticut is noteworthy.
Perhaps even more noteworthy is Sen. Blumenthal’s decision to invoke the term ‘antitrust’ in the opening paragraph of his letter to the league. I’ve argued in the past that the NBA’s ownership of the WNBA has started to create conflicts of interest in which it seems that there is pressure being exerted on Cathy Engelbert and the W to try and tilt the scales of expansion in favor of awarding franchises to those with NBA ties. The last four new franchises — Golden State, Portland, Toronto and Cleveland — all are run by groups that are directly tied to the NBA as existing majority or minority owners. The next two teams — Detroit and Philadelphia — also contain ownership groups from the NBA’s orbit.
What’s made the Sun deal so strange is the attempt by the league to influence who the Tribe sells to and what becomes of the team. There seems to be a clear desire to extract an expansion fee from Boston instead of simply relocating the team while also providing a handout for Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, who submitted a bid to presumably bring the Comets back.
While all generally unseemly and shady in practice, the introduction of political influence to the saga may mark a significant point in the W’s history. Most of these politicians, I’d gather, don’t know about the intricacies of the WNBA/NBA ownership web. Once they get wise to that concept, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was more discussion of antitrust if the league decides they want to continue to dictate how the Mohegan Tribe sells their team and to whom.
In short, buckle up. This has the chance to get really interesting.
5. Chicago Has Officially Crossed The Rubicon.
In the year 49 BCE, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River with his army and invaded Rome. He took back control of the Senate, more or less became an autocrat and precipitated the long but steady fall of the Roman Empire.
The idiom we use now, when discussing passing a point of no return, is ‘crossing the Rubicon’.
In Chicago, we are officially at the point of no return.
In my Sunday column, I laid out the historical precedent that led us to this point and opined that this only ends one of two ways: with Angel Reese being traded or general manager Jeff Pagliocca getting fired.
After seeing what happened in Las Vegas last night, I’m even more convinced that there is no way back for either party.
Angel Reese, suspended for the first half of the Aces game due to the fracas that ensued after her comments to the Chicago Tribune, didn’t play at all. The team cited issues with her back, which has been bugging her this year, as the reason she didn’t enter the game.
Maybe I’m too cynical but I have a hard time believing that.
If the team knew the back was an issue, what was the purpose of suspending her? What was the point of speaking as though everything was just fine with regard to her health? Why even put out a statement in the first place?
Either the team sat Reese or she refused to go back into the game.
In any case, it points to an unfixable fracture between the second year star and the front office running the Chicago Sky. I’m not quite sure how the Sky’s owners, Michael Alter and Nadia Rawlinson, proceed, but Sunday’s second half intrigue tells me that we’ve reached the end of the road. In plainer terms, the Angel Reese tenure in Chicago feels over. Now all that’s left is to figure out just how acrimonious this split is going to be on the way out.
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