cover of episode 2/6/23 - The Super-teams of East and West?

2/6/23 - The Super-teams of East and West?

2023/2/6
logo of podcast WNBA Nation

WNBA Nation

AI Deep Dive AI Chapters Transcript
People
L
Logan Jones
S
Steve Schwarzman
Topics
Steve Schwarzman: 自由队和王牌队都组建了强大的阵容,两队之间的竞争将非常激烈,这对于WNBA联盟来说是一件好事。联盟中存在两支实力强大的竞争对手对联盟发展有利,可以创造更精彩的比赛和故事。拥有愿意投资的球队老板对联盟有利,而那些不愿意投资的老板应该离开联盟。自由队通过签下范德斯洛特和斯图尔特,以团队友好型合同的方式组建了一支强大的球队,试图挑战卫冕冠军拉斯维加斯王牌队。自由队的首发阵容堪称全明星阵容,实力非常强大。 Logan Jones: 自由队阵容中,琼斯和斯图尔特两位MVP球员需要找到如何在场上共存的方式。范德斯洛特将主要担任控球后卫,而艾奥尼斯库将更多地扮演得分和组织进攻的混合角色。自由队的板凳深度可能优于王牌队。WNBA 球星的动机可能不仅仅是金钱,她们也追求个人影响力和改变世界。自由队和王牌队的成功是多年投资和战略规划的结果,并非偶然。除了自由队和王牌队之外,凤凰城水星队是第三支有竞争力的球队。

Deep Dive

Chapters
Steve and Logan discuss the implications of New York and Las Vegas assembling all-star rosters, focusing on how these moves affect the teams and the league as a whole.

Shownotes Transcript

Translations:
中文

We're driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search match with Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast.

Ditch the busy work. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, so the more you use Indeed...

the better it gets. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash bluewire.

Just go to Indeed.com slash BlueWire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash BlueWire. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed.

WNBA Nation!

You've got access to our blog. You've got access to episodes of our podcast. You've got access to our merch store. We can pick up t-shirts, sweatshirts, backpacks, anything, and all that helps support the show and what we're trying to do here at WNBA Nation. So we appreciate all of that. And again, like I said, you can find access to our social media accounts there at WNBA Nation pod. So you can find all of the links to our social media on

And as far as cool stuff coming up in the near future, we are excited about this year. We have some fun trips in the planning process. We're currently planning on having some people in Dallas for the Final Four. We're also planning on having our guys over at...

The All-Star Game in Vegas. So we've got some fun trips coming up that look like they are going to happen. So if you're going to be at either of those events, there's opportunities to meet with us. Shoot us a message. Let us know you're going to be there. We'll find a time to meet up and say hi. That's been a lot of fun when we've done that in the past. We're excited to do that again this year. As well as we are going to try to up some of our content on playback. Playback, if you haven't used it before, there is a link in the podcast description. You can also find information over at our website.

It's a fun service. What you do is you log in with your cable provider, so like AT&T or if you've got an online service like Sling. However you legitimately have access to the games, you log in with that, and what you're able to do is you're able to watch it at the same time as us. So it syncs us up, you watch it on playback via your cable provider, and...

what you get is you get to watch the game and you get to hang out with us while we do so. So we'll be talking through the game. We'll be talking about the game. We'll also be talking about other stuff. It's kind of like watching a game with buddies because that's legitimately what it is. We're just a group of friends watching the game, and you can be part of that. It's a lot of fun. We've really enjoyed it in the past. I think based on the comments, people who have joined it have really enjoyed it. So again, there's a link to that in the description. And it looks like this is like 80% confirmed, but this Thursday at 6.30 Eastern Time,

Iowa is visiting Indiana, and that game is going to be really good. That's number six and number four. Indiana, which has been kind of a fun surprise team at how good they are this year, going against Kaitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes. So we're really excited about that one. So that's number six and number four. That's this Thursday, February 9th.

at 6.30 p.m. Eastern Time is likely going to be our next playback. So if you haven't tried it out, put that on your calendar. We've got some episodes coming out later in the week. I will 100% confirm that and make that announcement on our podcast later this week. But that's been a lot of fun, and we want to continue that because we think that that is an awesome opportunity for us to...

uh, connect with y'all. Uh, we can bring fans onto the, what's called the stage. You can participate, give us your thoughts, hot takes, stuff like that. Uh, it's been a really good time in the past and we want to keep that going. Uh, so look for that content to come and, and we'll announce here on the podcast, uh,

whatever game's coming up next on Playback so that you can get those on your calendar and you can join us for that and have a lot of fun. But with that, I know you're not here to hear all of our pitches and plugs. You're here for some content, and for that, I'm going to toss it over to Steve and Logan. 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Hey, guys. This is Liz Cambay. This is Nikki Collin. What up, guys? This is F.S. Carson. Hey, this is Imani Lee Stafford. Hey, this is Jordan Canada. This is Asia O'Connor.

Welcome to the WNBA Nation. WNBA Nation! Congratulations! You've made it to the end of Free Agency Week, and there's still more to come.

I'm Steve Schwarzman, and I'm Steve Schwarzman, and I'm Steve Schwarzman.

Very excited to be joined by the newest signee to the Las Vegas Aces, Logan Jones. Logan, how are you? Yeah, yeah. They passed around a clipboard the other day, and they were just like, anybody who wants to be a part of the Vegas or New York basketball teams? We can't pay you. Well, apparently they can. I don't know how they can, but they've figured it out. Yeah, how does the math work on that? I think it was to Matt Allentuck.

put that out. It was on Twitter the other day. Like, you don't want to like break down the math for me as to how New York is making all these transactions work. And it's just, someone knows it's happening. We're not a math pod. So it's, it's out of our depth. We never claimed to be. We never claimed to be. That's, that's, that's David Barry's call. But Logan, what do you want to hit first? We have like way too much to talk about. Let's talk Vander Sloot and Stewie both in New York. Cause that's,

The last episode we all got on together was Candice Parker to Vegas. Who's going to be Vegas? This is an incredible move for them. This sucks for Chicago. Absolutely. Now you've got a Courtney VanderSloot and Bree Stewart headed to New York, both on team friendly deals, because that seems to indicate that they believe that team could do some things as long as they're willing to take a little bit of a cut.

which is how they're managing their way around the salary cap, which is a completely fair way of doing it. That's not sarcastic. I actually think that that's a fair way of doing it. So the answer to the Vegas kind of super team defending champs run is the Liberty are going to try. And I guess the obvious question is Steve,

Do you give him a shot? I mean, I better. See, film season feels kind of real here. I mean, this is – when you look at this starting five, it's just like you're talking John Quayle Jones, Bette Najolini, Sabrina Ionescu, Brianna Stewart, and Courtney VanderSloot.

it's an all-star team. I don't even know the words. Everyone said it. It's bonkers. Yeah, it's huge. I mean, when you look at these, we compare in the Vegas and New York rosters, it very much has a, these are two all-star starting fives, you know, set up. And in a way, I mean, it almost could have been last year. I wonder if we look it up, how close were those matchups like it's. And that's what is immense here. But I think it,

Opens up a lot of different noises here because, for one, I think this is really opening to what star players are looking for and how their motivations are different. Right now, I think within the W, their motivation almost can't be money given what they're being paid. And so it's different for people. I think it's not...

It can't be overlooked how Breeze, how Stewie started her announcement. You know, she held a piece of paper that said, you know, I want him to make a mark on the world or I want to change the world or like, you know, and, and transition to that into I'm joining the New York Liberty. And, and,

You know, you Vander salute, which by the way, the alley quickly news, I think is also not coincidental in that. Yeah, of course. Take the year off and then let's wait for the Liberty to have Capra to sign quickly. Like it's one of those situations. So I, I mean, I think it's, it's huge. It's hard because this is new. Like a week or two ago, we were all saying, how nuts would it be if the Liberty pulled this off? And then they freaking pulled it off.

And it's just hard to put insane words to like what this roster looks like. I will jump it straight to you as far as like hype and everything goes. But what are your question marks about New York now that you're looking at what their roster is boiling out to be? Yeah, I guess staying in the roster construction zone to answer your question.

Uh, my real question is who is going to be willing to sacrifice on the floor? Um, obviously you can, you can take the macro view of this and a lot of people have, and this discussion could easily become about is the salary cap working? Is it leading to lead parity? Blah, blah, blah. Um,

Players can take pay cuts to go play with whoever they want. That's every sport forever. You're not going to be able to do anything about that. But as my dad always likes to say, anytime the Lakers amass a bunch of really good players in one place, there's only one basketball. I don't think that's going to be much of a problem for the backcourt. I actually think having VanderSloot in there primarily as the greatest distributor the league has ever seen

That's obviously going to uplift your offense. And by the way, Sabrina was, I think, second in assists per game last year. So now they have the top two assists per

in the league on one team, which is crazy. But I think Sabrina can also be more of a scorer and a slasher than a distributor if you need her to be. That's the advantage of having someone like that on your team. Whereas I don't think they're going to use Vander Sloot as a scorer. For the last couple seasons, that hasn't really been her game.

So primary ball handler is going to be Vander Sloot. Sabrina is going to move more into a cutting and distributing kind of hybrid role. I'm really excited for what this means for her. I think she's going to have one of the best seasons of her career. Yeah. Really like by, by a lot. I think it's going to be the best season of her career. When it comes down to, I think this is a long preamble to get to this point, but John Quo Jones and Brianna Stewart are going to have to figure out how to coexist. Those are two MVP players.

who've played as the primary big on like, like the rock of their franchises respectively in, in Connecticut and in Seattle for a long time. Um, I think, I don't think either of them has the ego or the, I need to be the star face of this team Ness to cause problems like personality wise in the locker room. Um,

But there's only so much usage that can go around. And obviously, Bree Stewart, I think, is the natural choice for like, you're going to be the featured big in this team. And I don't know if that's something Jonquil Jones planned on. I mean, she was part of a trade where everybody else is coming here to New York versus via free agency. So...

I don't know. I think they've got a good enough coach and their prospects being a contender aren't good enough that it should keep everyone happy. That's sort of the magic of winning a lot of games is things just kind of settle down when things are going well. If for some reason they started the season on like an 0-5 streak, I could see some problems arising, but that's not going to happen. So I think the roster is going to work really well together. I don't think I'm concerned about there only being one basketball team

VanderSloot could finish the season without taking a shot and still be an effective point guard. And Sabrina is still going to get, you know, you might see more triple doubles from Sabrina than we've ever seen just because she's going to be doing a little bit of everything out there. You're going to have two good rebounding scoring bigs in the front court.

And then you still have a bunch of reinforcements behind them on the team. So it's an impressive answer. We asked the question in our Vegas gets Candice Parker pod, like who the rest of the league is on notice. Like what are they going to do about this? And is it going to matter? And this is a pretty impressive way of putting together a group that can contend with them to the point where it causes me to question who my favorite is. I still think I lean Vegas because...

Because the Asia Wilson, Candice Parker, and everyone else, their combo has proven itself. They're the reigning champs. They've reached the pinnacle. Yes. But who on this New York Liberty team hasn't proven themselves? I mean, they've got multiple MVPs. They've got players that are still rising to their prime. And I think they should make the finals nine games.

I think a series between these two teams is going to be very fun if that's what ends up happening. Yeah, and it opens up a lot of different, I guess, league-wide, you call them morality questions, I don't know, that we could dive into. But I'll put it this way. A lot of people are already playing the Vegas v. New York game. Here's my main question. And this is a story yet to be completed because we have a handful of, you know, we have transactions still coming in, changes that are still pending.

But right now, we know what these starting fives are going to look like, and they look comical. But whose bench are you taking? Who wins the death game right now between New York and Vegas? That's such a good question. I think I'm leaning New York, actually. I would as well. And that's, I think, surprising. Because, again, I am very, like... I don't think knocking Vegas off the mountain is going to be easy. But outside of De'Arica Hamby...

Vegas depth was the one small question mark we had about them last year. And now New York is just, they're pretty deep. I really, I'm struggling to find a weakness in this team aside from the, they're a brand new team that has not played together at all versus Vegas is a pretty cohesive unit that, that drops Candace Parker in there and it should be pretty seamless. Yeah. And it's an interesting case too, because it's, uh,

You know, I think of a, if you have Sandy Brandelo, this is going to coach of any of, of bringing those stars together. When you look at what she was managing in Phoenix, I think it's possible, but one of the biggest benefactors personally, I think of all of this is going to be Steph Dolson. I think that the perfect scenario for Steph is to be the a one big off the bench to continue to maintain momentum and,

on both sides of the court for this Liberty roster, because she, I think showed a lot of improvement coming out of that three X three tournament and out of the Olympics and whatnot. And with that, uh,

This will allow her, I think, to get – I think, weirdly, her coming off the bench will actually get her more minutes, if that doesn't sound funny, and allow her to play more of a court general, be able to set the narrative for that second squad better. And I actually think it's going to bring that crew together really well. I think the pairing of her and Michele Onyemwere is going to be really strong.

Kayla Thornton is a really good piece for them. I mean, I think up and down you have the ability to have a pretty solid bench. It's my one question for Vegas as I look at it right now is you maintain Raquanna Williams, which is great. They picked up Kayla George out of Australia. She's been overseas for a few years. We'll see if she can kind of bring back some mojo there, but that's yet to be seen.

Outside of that, it's hard to tell what the identity of that second squad for Vegas is going to be. I think if you were to ask Becky Hammond and company, they'd tell you they really don't care. I think they feel good about the situation they're in. All respect to that. But that's really been my one main question is depth as far as these two things. And the one thing with the Liberty was...

What you did in Vegas is you took a great squad and you added an all-timer to it, which is a really good way to up-level your team. What the Liberty did was they've been able to get quality minutes out of starters that were able to turn what was once a fledgling organization into a playoff team, and now that's your bench.

And that's a pretty dangerous thing to have. What you brought up, I think, is going to be that question, though, is how quickly does this team mold? I would expect to see the Aces starting a bit hotter than New York as they find time to let the – and I think it's just the curse of the WNBA just not really having much of a preseason. But there's kind of my take on it.

We're driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search match with Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast.

Ditch the busy work. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, so the more you use Indeed...

the better it gets. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash blue wire.

I want to open this up to kind of the overarching question.

Note that a lot of people are talking about. So this isn't going to be rare for people to hear about on a WNBA podcast, which by the way, you should go listen to all of them. But I guess as we close out the discussion of all these blockbuster moves we've seen in out of Vegas, out of New York city, I, I'm trying to think of a smoother way to ask this question.

But a lot of people are calling this like the start of the super team era, whatever you want to call it. As far as the rise, that's what the ESPN headline is. The rise of super team. Yeah. There's been some world questions on one side or the other. Are you, are you for or against that type of branding? Do you, do you think this rise of two teams turning into potential juggernauts before any basketball has been played, by the way? Um,

Do you think this is bad for the league? Do you think this is stunting growth? Do you think this is holding back 10 other squads? Where do you see this? I don't think it's directly bad for the league. Let me lead off with that. I think what's bad for the league is having a handful of owners not willing to make this sort of investment in their team. That's what's bad for the league. I think it's good for the league to have owners like you have in Vegas and New York.

going out and making things happen and bringing prestige and players in to win titles. And furthermore, I...

there's not a lot you can do right now about the money side of things. And that's the money is always going to be the answer to every question you have about like, how is this happening? It's like, how did Tom Brady win a million Super Bowls? He took a pay cut. He could have been making 45 million a year on a different team. And instead he took 25 million so that he could have good teammates and then take all the credit when they won. That's,

The Liberty saved money bringing in MVP John Quill Jones and trading away Natasha Howard. That move saved money. Like they... You know, Bree Stewart could be making infinity money if not for the current CPA at max contract levels and stuff like that. And Courtney Vandersloot is an instant Hall of Fame player that also could be commanding a max contract if you want. That's just not

That's not what their priority is right now. Their priority is to go play for a Liberty team that they know is going to invest in them and all the stuff that you don't see on the court, by the way, too. That's why I'm a little bit of a scatterbrained right here, but I'm going to go baseball now on this one. The reason I hate the Yankees, well, there's a lot of reasons I hate the Yankees, but one of them is they get all the good players that they want because they can offer a lot of money and they have like daycare.

They do a bunch of stuff off the field that's like, oh, that's why people like playing there is they actually take care of their players like professionals. And I thought that Vegas was one of those teams until the Dierke Hamby thing kind of

Maybe scramble that a little bit. And we know that New York is one of those teams because their owner is annoyed about the whole charter flight situation, which is something that Brie Stewart has called out by name as something that's important to her. It's the travel situation in the WBA. So I know I just threw a bunch of different data points out there and didn't connect them very well for you. And I apologize. But the point is, owners that are willing to invest in putting a good team and a good product on the floor should be rewarded for

And other owners who are not willing to do that should get rid of their teams and get owners into the league who are willing to do that. And I know that's kind of a bold stance because we're talking about the millionaires, billionaires of the world. But that's what it comes down to is I want people owning teams in the WNBA who see it as more than just a tax write-off.

It's fine if they see it as an investment. That's fine. That's what all owners see sports teams as. But invest in it and see what the return can be because the Liberty are going to be a hot topic this year. I'm excited to see Seafoam merch out there more than we've ever seen. And I don't necessarily think that's a problem. I think that's a, hey, follow their lead and...

and, and, and by the way, not just like sink more, you know, it's take a team like the Indiana fever. It's like, look, you're, you're not going to suddenly like sink New York Liberty types of money into facilities and things like that. What you can do is make savvy moves. Like you can put, you can put offers on the table that makes sense instead of offering max contracts every year to players who it doesn't make sense to, which we'll get into later. No, I,

I think your stance is there. I think in the short term, in the short lens, if you look at how – if this season pans out the way I think a lot of people are expecting it to, and let's bear in mind no basketball has been played, we have no freaking idea what's going to happen. We have no idea if Keenan and company – Every on-paper team.

In Seattle, shock the world. We have no idea what's going to happen, right? But if everything goes the way it really seems like it's going to, in the short term, yes, it might look like a lot of rosters are stepping back while these teams step forward and there's going to be this gap of talent within the league. My question with it is, what did you as an organization set in place to see to it that this could happen? Because when you talk about investment and you're dead set correct about that,

You're almost not talking about how much you're paying the players because that level sets kind of even across the board. There's really only so much wiggle room you can make when it comes to what you can spend on the players themselves. But I think...

Each owner in this situation, first of all, who have been the two most outspoken owners about trying to legitimize their rosters and up-level women's sports as a whole? And how they envision helping it get as close to the level of the other men's mainstream leagues as possible. It's been Josiah and it's been Mark Davis. And that's what we've seen.

Joe site, what you call that with Brie Stewart is huge. Brie Stewart, when she wasn't cryptically tweeting emojis out of nowhere for a couple of weeks, she was outspoken saying, I want to see systematic change. And, and one of the big things she called out was player travel, who was one of the main outspoken owners when it came to player travel, who's been, who's been willing to take fines out of his own pocket and,

to backdoor give his team private travel because why it's stupid that we can't do this. It was Joe Cy. One of the biggest recruiting pieces that Mark Davis enacted in the last two years was specifically how much he's paying Becky Hammond to be coach. Not even Becky Hammond coaching there, but specifically how much he's willing to pay here. Why? Because the...

Power of how much they can pay is within Mark Davis's ability. And he's sending the message to players. If I can have the freedom to put the money toward it, I'm going to do it. If I can find a way to make it better for you, I will. I'm constrained by a collective bargaining agreement that I can only pay you this much money year on year. If I can find a way to make this a better circumstance for you, I want to now, uh,

Obviously, this coincides with what Derek Hamby has spoken out about, and there's some cross wires here. But the recruiting message is there in Vegas to say, look, when I was able to give...

someone in our organization, your head coach, a big time contract. I did it. If I can find a way to put that investment there for you, I can do that. So when Candace Parker says, I want to make the best decision for me and my family, that's her saying, listen, I can pretty much make around the same amount of money to play basketball at any of these three cities. I feel like anything else that I can ask for, I'm going to get it from them. And I don't want this to be like, Oh, because these are the two richest owners in the league. That's kind of what frustrates me about it.

It's not, yes, there are some organizations whose owners don't have as deep a pocket. Magic Johnson has really deep pockets. Thank you.

Alright, alright. There's something I've been meaning to touch on. Why isn't this happening in Los Angeles? Why isn't this happening in other cities where there are owners that are looking to pick this up? And even if the owners don't have that money, where is that investment coming from? I expect Atlanta to find some kind of rise to this in the next few years because it seems like they're motivated to take on investors. Look at what the Los Angeles or LAFC, Angel City has done in the NWSL. They may not have one

Uber billionaire owner, but they have a fleet of rich investors who've been able to put good money into creating a legitimate roster. There are ways around this. There are ways to build this infrastructure. So to the 10 other teams, whether it's finding an owner who has deep pockets or

or building out a group of investors who can create this environment for your teams, where are you? Because it's possible. It's out there. You have that ability to put those pieces together. So what moves have you been making? Because both the Liberty and the Aces have been putting this quietly in place for several years now. It's not like this suddenly happened this summer. You can see the upper trajectory from both sides.

There's something that I would like to touch on. No, no, no. You're explaining points that I was trying to explain and I was doing it poorly much clearer. And I appreciate that you were able to iron those out because that's what I was trying to get at. And then somehow I got off on a Yankees tangent and that was dumb. Here's something that I want to make as clear as possible. And I hope I don't screw it up because I really believe in this.

I've seen some concerns about like, is the super team thing bad for the league? Is this like UConn and women's college basketball and blah, blah, blah. Like is ruining parity a problem for the league? Here's the thing. I am typically against dynasties because I think one dominant team is... I think those arguments are valid. I think it is bad for the league to just have one team that's unquestionably the best year after year. No one competing with them. Two competing rivals...

is what built the NBA. And I know you're going to agree with this because it was the Larry Bird Celtics and the Magic Johnson Lakers that I think is the single biggest contributing factor to modern NBA success were those two teams warring with each other. That league was dead in the water at the end of the 70s. They were...

Yeah. I think one of the best possible things for the WNBA would be to have multiple years of an East team and a West team that somehow learned to hate each other's guts, which we need a little bit more of in the W to be honest with you.

And to turn those into prime time main event fights every night that they're on TV. I can't picture a better thing for WNBA growth than having a Liberty team and a Vegas team clash for bragging rights year after year. I think that's great for the league. I mean, that's a lot of conjecture. I don't know if that's what's going to happen, but...

And that's not to say that we, you necessarily want to see just those two teams in final scenarios year after year after year, but it opens, it sets a narrative tone. It also keeps that gate open for other teams to enter the echelon. When one team is ruling the roost, it's really hard to break that empire. When you open it up to multiple teams, it's,

They have that ability. And I think some teams, other teams are up and in that trajectory because it takes time. These things take time to build. And that's what I don't want people to have this idea that like, this was suddenly something that was coming in place. I can go back to like 2020 and, and hearing people talking about,

Bree Stewart in New York, like maybe 2021 more realistically, but like, like these things happen. These discussion points build over time because you could watch, you know, teams will tell you what they're doing without telling you and what they're looking to build. And so these things take time, but that's where I stand by that. I know a lot of people have even said like, Oh, it pulls other teams back. It makes them less good. You know, it hurts potential, uh,

Ticket sales, this, that, and the other, I still don't think that's true. I think you build that level of loyalty. By the way, I don't want to make the NBA comparison, but ask the 2011 to 2013 Miami Heat how much it was hurting other organizations' ticket sales whenever they were in town. So at least there you have two hot tickets. But I think you're going to be able to see that buildup come from this. So I think overall, this is a standard.

Now you go to one last discussion, which is you have two organizations that people are talking about. This build of Candice Parker moving to Vegas got screen time on the NBA studios in TNT. Primetime.

her at the desk talking about her decision to go to Vegas. And I don't know if that quite gets as much play if it's returning home to LA or staying in New York because it was such a blockbuster move. It got screen time. She, she got to say that in front of the world when Stewie and, and Courtney Vander salute, when all of that came out in this New York stuff, it headlined ESPN's website for a bit.

you're starting to see people want to talk about that. And it's exactly what you're talking about. It creates a narrative. It creates a story. It creates that juggernaut matchup. I know people probably naturally are not going to want to see these teams in the finals.

financially, it's probably the best thing people could ask for. I don't know why you wouldn't. Of course, I know there are fans of other teams that want no business in seeing the same two teams dominate year after year. But think about this for a second. I don't make the Magic and Bird comparison lightly, but now you've got... If you want to bring new fans into this league, you immediately have a discussion because it's, are you New York or are you Vegas? Are you...

The Liberty who lost in the finals at the beginning of the league's history? Or Vegas, the new school team who moved to Vegas recently and won? They're the reigning champs. There's a lot of who's the good guy and who's the bad guy going on here. The biggest one to me is who do you think is the face of the league right now? Is it Stewie or is it Asia? Because they're one and two in MVP voting every year and will probably be so again. Yeah.

You and I have had this discussion for multiple years now, which is we're, you know, super retiring. Sylvie fouls, retiring Dan Taurasi only has so many years left. You start to see certain arrows of the WNBA moving on. And when you look at the next 10 to 15 to even 20 years of the future of this league, who are the two faces leading the charge? And you and I have both said it multiple times. It's Brie Stewart. It's Asia Wilson. Like it's,

That's and those are the two names. Like, yeah, I know intelligent basketball fans and our listeners are those fans know that you can be a fan of both, of course. And we we all at the podcast, we like both of them a lot. But I think it's good for the league to create a story that is like, who's who's number one? And I know the NBA has been doing this for years and it's kind of gotten annoying with the whole LeBron stuff. But who's who's the best player in the league?

They both have rings. They're both on super teams in marquee locations. They both sell a lot of jerseys. They're both virtually unstoppable on both sides of the court. I'm asking these questions, not actually knowing if I could answer right now who I think is the better player of the two. And I'm excited to see them deal with it on the court.

in a way that maybe proves it by the end of their careers. I think that's the best possible scenario for a sport is to have, you know, picture any, I mean, I've referenced a lot of other leagues in this pot already, but like picture Fenner's career without Nadal.

And just going in and just murdering tennis for 23 years. Very boring. Right? Very boring. Instead, it's the who's going to win the most titles. Like, who's going to come in with the final total? Like, that's what it's going to come down to. Yeah. And that's made it a very compelling sport for the last several years. Well, that's where you can even go to the women's side of tennis. And there's a lot of exciting, great players right now playing women's tennis.

But there's been one name that stood atop, and it's made it so it's this open field of who stands to gain because of that. If Serena had a foil, like a strong, strong foil over the years, it would have been a really interesting case. But I also just don't want to water down her legend, obviously. I know Twitter hasn't been nice to you whenever you've even mentioned Serena before. So...

I don't want to... Nobody on Twitter even knows who Margaret Fort is, so I don't want to talk tennis with anybody on Twitter. But yeah, the point is having two opposing forces is extremely compelling. I've got family in the tennis game, so I should know. Diego Schwarzman? Oh, yeah.

The pride of Argentina. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Let's go. Diego, go. No, I think we could go back and forth on all this. I think it's obviously very intriguing. It's exciting, and we'll see how it all pans out. I'm curious, and you can make this 10 seconds or less. In our previous podcast, Dumb, when we used to talk about like –

peanut butter versus jelly type conversations. What's the better of this and that? We always joked about the goofy, like what's the third place option? Like obviously everyone's talking about, is it Vegas or is it New York? Is there a third roster you're looking at right away and saying, let's just be safe and not overlook these guys. Cause who knows what could happen? It's a good question. I mean, you can say no, I don't, I don't think there's really a third that is in the conversation with these top two players.

I really wish I had an answer for you. I want to have a dark horse. Like, don't forget, don't forget this team. But the truth is, I think this is an easy one to like, I don't really know. Connecticut's always up there, right? I don't think I believe in Connecticut as much this year. Seattle's always up there. I definitely don't believe in Seattle this year. Mystics, Wings, other playoff teams that were in the playoffs this year. Like, I don't, I don't think so. Maybe, maybe,

Maybe Griner comes back and just has a tear of a year with Phoenix and Diana Taurasi plays a lot of games and Phoenix settles into kind of a bronze medal spot. Maybe.

It would be cool to see... The last time we saw her on the basketball court... She was playing MVP basketball the last time we saw her on a court. She had one of the better playoffs. And we've forgotten about that because obviously there's a lot more going on with Reiner than basketball for the past year. If she is back at that caliber...

And things just click with that Phoenix roster. I think there's still a distant in the rear view third, but I could see them being like, hey, maybe we should start talking about Greiner and Tarazi. They're pretty good. They've had some success together, if you recall. That's kind of the only... I really don't see...

I think there's just going to be a lot of mismatch in the three through eight area this coming year. No, yeah. I think that there's going to, it's going to be a competitive run. Phoenix probably stands above in terms of, I think it comes down to if Phoenix can figure things out between if Griner, who seems very bent, you know, motivated to play, which is exciting. You know, if Griner can, can come back full swing, if,

If we can have a healthy Taurasi to play throughout the season. If Sophie Cunningham plays as well as... The promotion of Sophie Cunningham can be. Because the way that Phoenix has...

have marketed this signing it seems like they're in if Diamond DeShields can come back into her own and if they can if they don't make a move with Skyler Diggins-Smith and can coexist with Skyler Diggins-Smith I think that roster has a chance to do some exciting things with that we'll head on to another exciting week in the world of women's basketball we have some really fun stuff coming up

on the podcast next week. We're looking to lock in a guest or two that you should be excited about, so keep your ears peeled for that. But until all then, thanks again for listening to this episode of WNBA Nation. I'm Steve Haywood. And I'm Logan Jones. And we'll see you guys next time.