Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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 Mee. Hey, this is Jordan Canada. This is Asia Wilson. Welcome to the WNBA Nation. WNBA Nation! Hello again.
And when we say WNBA Nation this time, we truly freaking mean it because we have a season to kick off. I'm Steve Schwartzman. I am currently flanked by Logan Jones and Jason Snow. Logan, Jason, how be? Yay! It's that time. Doing good. And we don't know yet. This feels like a...
Um, like a Goldberg is on his way to WCW night. Is he going to be here? Is he not? But we do have, uh, the high potential of an appearance by one Kyle Haywood. We don't know yet. He's potentially in route to a studio. He's, uh,
His availability has changed. My sources are telling me that it's 50-50 game time chance that he may arrive before the end of tonight's recording. But there is a chance that he'll be out for the duration. And we'll have more information on you. We'll go to Holly Row on the sideline with more information as we get it. That makes it sound like Kyle is in peril. He's fine. He's not. He's coming back from a meeting. He's safe. Everyone's safe. We're fine.
We hope you guys are doing well. Friends, the 2023 season is upon us. For listeners, if you are listening, depending on when you are this weekend, the season's already started for you. But we are, as we record this, at the eve of the WNBA season. How are we feeling? It's crazy that it's here already. And at the same time...
I think it just... The offseason seems to go a lot faster when you really soak yourself into the college game. I think we did a better job of this past year. So I know I paid a lot more attention to the beginning of the college season in the fall. Enjoyed myself a lot. This March Madness, knowing a lot more about what teams were part of it. And then as we always do, suddenly we were like, Oh, wait...
A week from the end of the tournament is the draft. And a week after that is like training camp. And now here we are. So again, if this is like your first time listening to the show or this is your first season with us, you've been listening for a couple of weeks or something like that. This is it. This is what it sounds like. Absolutely. No, it's interesting. The window is so quick. I always think back to that 2008 season we've done a history on where...
Candice Parker won a national title, got on a plane, and the next day was drafted to the Sparks. That timing is nuts, but this isn't much different. Jason, we're on the eve of the 2023 season. How are we feeling?
I'm excited. This is a, there's a long buildup to this. Like you guys were just talking through it, but you know, really starting in kind of January, February, as we start approaching conference tournaments and stuff like that, there, there's this eye that we have on like, this is where it gets started. And one of the big landmarks of that is kind of the start of the WNBA season. So, you know,
You know, it's right up there with Christmas and Hanukkah and all the other great holidays of the year. This is the beginning of the WNBA season. It's a lot of fun. And it marks a fun time for us because I'm going to talk to you guys like twice a week for the next like three months. It'll be a lot of fun. So I'm excited to get started. Great oldies.
I love it. Yeah, this is definitely a stuck time, which is interesting because I think if you listen to last week's episode with myself and Logan, you'd think we weren't looking forward to the season in a weird way. But just a lot's happened. There's a lot to detox. But at the end of the day, we're here to talk about basketball. And we finally have basketball to talk about. I don't know if you guys know this, but for the first time this year, we have professional basketball taking place. It's happening. It's time. It's time.
To make that happen. We're not really going to dive into much of anything else. This is our prediction time. I will say really quick, I'll just go down a couple pieces of gauntlet things so that it's out of the way. I don't even know that we're going to discuss it. The WNBNA is still and will continue to be in heavy need of expansion until it happens. The level of quality...
rookies and young players that have been waived is absolutely ludicrous. We need a team in Canada as soon as possible because they had possibly one of the most successful showcases the league has ever needed, which was fantastic. Becky Hammond is going to be out for the first two games of the season and the aces probably deserve it and potentially might deserve more. We'll see how that continues to play out.
We hope all the best for Derek Hamby as she continues things with the new team. Lots of new faces in the league and transactions continuing to happen. So the roster structure is going to be especially interesting. Four teams are going to be entering with New Jersey's. Three of them are bad. Did I miss anything in that roundup?
I think you nailed it. That was actually super impressive. That was amazing. We'll put that on TikTok as a league in a minute type of thing. If you're hoping for more details about specific teams, today's episode is predictions based and we're all going to talk about like, I know at least two of us have our one through 12 written down. So we're going to talk about every team anyway. So don't worry, we'll get around to it.
Absolutely. So this is our predictions episode. We're going to dive into some individual awards. We're going to talk about how our seedings are going to play out. And then we're going to close things out by predicting your 2023 Commissioners Cup winner, as well as your WNBA champion.
As you know, we take these predictions very seriously. We expect you to scrutinize them as heavily as possible because we believe that they are gospel and will happen exactly as we predict them. We have full confidence in them and would stake our claim and our finances...
on these predictions. Can we get the Mona Lisa drop? The I have never done anything wrong in my life ever. Money, please. That's how I feel about our predictions. I have done nothing wrong ever in my life. I know this.
And I love you. I love you too, daddy. Money, please! My money. I thought your Mona Lisa drop was just how everyone online recently has been suddenly coming out about how the actual Mona Lisa painting is overrated. Apparently it's just not worth the crowd at the Louvre.
to look at. And I'm just like, what a weird flex. Well, I don't, I don't hang out on those uncultured corners of Twitter. So I didn't know that was going on, but I'm just, I'm into the spot of, I'm pretty much right now, strictly in between like Ted Lasso and succession clips. That's where, and I don't even watch succession. They just, they,
What seems to come up? Logan, I'll pick on you. Before we hit predictions, do you want to give our listeners a quick roundup of where they can find us and stay connected with the program? Sure, I do. You already found the podcast, so congratulations on that. If you haven't yet left a five-star review, please do so. We'll read them on the air, give you some shout-outs. We love that.
We also have a website, WNBA nation.com. We are always committing to adding more stuff on the website and then stuff tends to come up, but we do have an episodes tab with all of our latest episodes. If you want to find them there, we also do have a blog, which we will endeavor to update throughout this WNBA season. It's got our Twitch link. It's got our store link. So if you see us with cool shirts or mugs or stickers or anything like that, that's where you can get those. And then contact wise, we,
at WNB Nation pod, virtually anywhere that you can be found. We're on Twitter. We are on TikTok. That wasn't just a joke earlier. We're hip. We're young. We're into it. We're with it. We don't do the millennial pause or we're good about our vocal fry and all that stuff. We knew about the Bonita meme.
for several weeks even. I actually really like that one. That's actually a funny one. We will be trying to update to our throughout the season we'll probably be updating our TikTok more and more. Clips of the show, other insights, fun stuff there. But Logan, thank you so much for the rundown. Definitely stay connected with the show. Let's go ahead and get to the nitty and or gritty
of things as we dive into it. We've got three of us here. We will see if we get an appearance from Kyle Haywood. He loves a dramatic entrance, as you guys know. He's really very much about himself. Oh, if there's one thing you need to know about Kyle if you've never met him before, it's that he is so selfish. He's a kid. It's his fault. Just, there's no one that is more...
I've never met more of a Jamie Tartt in my life than Kyle Hayward. Okay. Who wouldn't want to be him? If you guys are good with it, I'm going to... If he jumps on the call, I'm going to give him some play on music, and it's going to be the Toby Keene. I want to talk about me. I want to talk about Iowa. That's going to be Kyle's music. That's Kyle's walk-on music from now on. We're literally...
Can we just do that drop in any future episode where we introduce Kyle? We're like, Kyle's with us. Hey, Kyle. We just automatically throw that in there. It's always fun to pick on literally the nicest human being in the whole life. He is such a good person. It almost docile to a fault. No, I...
So we'll see if Kyle hangs it up. But if we don't see him, I still have, I actually do have most of his predictions here. He sent them over. So we will be reading those off. So I'll have him last in the rotation just to be nice and we'll see how it goes. But to play court with you guys, as far as individual awards, do you guys want to start straight up with the MVP and work our way down? Do we want to go a different route with it? What order do y'all want to take?
I'm good just going straight with MVP. It's the top of my list, so I'm fine with that. I'm going to start this one off just in the order of who's on my screen, which is how everyone does any of these questionnaires in web meetings. That makes sense.
Yeah. So, Logan, you're next under me. So, why don't you take it away and let's hear who you've got for the 2023 WNBA MVP. All right. Well, there's going to be some bold predictions on today's episode. This, I don't think, is going to count as one of them. There's really – it's been a two-horse race the last couple years in the league, it seems, between Asia Wilson and Bree Stewart. Asia's won two of the last three years. So, I've got Stewie. Best of luck.
That's basically what it came down to. The Vegas odds are virtually identical for both Asia and Stewie. I think Stewie has a slight lead just because probably more people in New York are really excited about betting on it. But it's going to be one of those two. It just...
feels like it. And I wonder if maybe because both teams are really stacked, but because the aces are so stacked and they added even more talent, like two big names in the off season, I wonder if maybe Stewie will get a little bit of an edge just because maybe there'll be some Asia Wilson fatigue in the voting. So I tried to consider like, maybe that will influence it, but ultimately it comes down to Stewie's really good. I think she's going to have another MVP in her career. So why not make it this year?
100% fill you on there. Makes a lot of sense. Never a bad idea. Even super teams aside, that's one of the safer, just like if you're going to call it a name, it might as well be Brie Stewart. So, Logan, you've got Brie Stewart, MVP. Jason, who are you
Who are you taking? So Logan is probably right. I did not calculate in voter fatigue, and that's because I have a very particular formula for the MVP prediction. So I didn't calculate that, but that probably is going to end up leaning in his way. But I first find out who do I think will be the best team at the end of the regular season, best record. And for me, that's Las Vegas Aces. And then my second question is who's the best player on that team? So I've got Asia Wilson bringing in for another question.
This is Kelsey Plum Eraser. How dare you? This is Kayla George Eraser. Oh, man. No, it makes complete sense. And you guys both kind of fed into my pick pretty well because I agree with you guys. I think this is becoming kind of a two-horse race you're looking at.
Stewie and Asia are probably the frontrunner teams to what are probably going to be the best teams in the league this year. And so I've weighed this back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, and I finally concluded that the MVP is going to be Elena Deladon. Yeah! Yeah! I think for the sake of fun in some ways, but I'll say this.
If there is a third potential horse in this race, if you're thinking there isn't one and there almost isn't one in some ways, but if there is one team that could mess things up, every time I look at that mystics roster, I really like what I see. It makes me so happy to make a lot of noise. And also this is really the first year, possibly since 2019, we are getting like, like EDD with a full throat, full health ready to come in headfirst. Um,
and put the work in. You have Natasha Cloud, who has risen herself to superstardom in that time. I can see the Mystics being good, but this isn't about the Mystics. This is about Della Dawn herself. I expect her to be defensively sound, and I could see her being possibly one of the most pivotal late-game players, and obviously she's one of the best offensive players in the league. Let's forget the last time she won an MVP was her being one of the first players, male or female, in a long time to hit. I always forget what the...
Stat is the 40, 50, 90 stats. 40% from three, 50% for the field, 90% from the free throw line. And I think this is going to be a big return case for her. I could see it absolutely happening in the event that MVP voters are looking at the crowded stardom in Vegas into New York and put stock in that. If that narrative plays a role here and there is a player who is
is going to be the face of astounding success for a team, I see it being Dalladon. So, that's...
That's awesome. I probably shouldn't shout into my microphone when you announce picks. I don't know if Jason's going to edit that out or not, but like it actually got me really excited thinking about the, like the type of season that would need to have like that Washington would need to have in order to make that happen, I think is one of the outcomes that is on the table this season. And it's a very fun one. Yeah. Yeah. And so I, what did that make for fun basketball?
And that's kind of where my head's been at in a lot of ways. So, Lainey Dalton. And guys, it's really a shame Kyle's not here. Because if you thought my pick was out of the blue, Kyle's taking Neko Ogumike. And I just so badly want to hear his take on it. I'm here for it. I love that idea. Does anyone here want to take a stab at where this is coming from at all? So, I saw that this was his pick, but I haven't seen his 1 through 12. Does he have...
Does he have LA finishing? Maybe he's just like, I'm a believer, man. NECA and Kurt Miller.
It's all the way to the top. There's one other take that supports that I think he has the sparks in pretty high stock. I'll put it that far. Okay. Because that would explain, like, I think they're going to go far and she's going to be the catalyst. I don't have this 1 through 12 on me. It's what I'm missing. But I would be shocked if he didn't have them in a good spot because there's a couple things, at least one other thing going on in his predictions that tells me they have to have good level success if what he's saying happens happens.
Just so you know, we're not a betting show. We don't give betting advice and none of us gamble at all. But the Vegas odds for MVP have Stewie at plus 270 and Asia at plus 290. Those are the best two odds and they're virtually identical. They do have Deladon on the list at plus 1100. And Neko Gubike is also on the list at plus 2200.
There you have it. So not, not off the charts. Crazy. I like the bold. I like bold takes.
Just if you want to put a number to it. If I have a reaction to Kyle's pick, it's just that I think I agree with you guys. I think what he's seeing is I think he's seeing Kurt Miller taking LA to maybe the three spot in terms of his one through 12 and therefore kind of earning that MVP for NECA. That being said, I think Kurt Miller's system is going to take more than one year to bear fruit in LA. I don't think it's an overnight type of a thing.
We'll have to see how that plays out, but I'll definitely say based on even just these MVP picks alone, I think Kyle has to have the same brainwave that I have with Della Dawn. He's probably putting them in that same prowess and Ogum can't have it. Which, I'll say this about Kurt Miller, the Sparks lost a handful of stars over the years.
And they've maintained NECA really as the face of a new face team. And if I know Kurt Miller well enough, there's always reasons for that. And so I think he really believes in NECA to be the absolute face of that team. And that's kind of a mark that hasn't been hers in a while, probably since she was last MVP.
And I could see him kind of unleashing here. So I think there's potential to see that narrative somewhere, whether or not that comes to fruition, we'll see. But I do really like the pick. I think it's a spicy and a fun pick. And it's another one that would be pretty sick if it happened because it would...
It means we're in for some fun Sparks basketball. Oh, yeah. It doesn't involve Derek Fisher, which is really nice. So to review our MVP predictions, Logan is officially taking Brianna Stewart, Jason, Asia Wilson. Myself is taking Elena Deladon, Kyle taking Neko Kumake. That had a lot more parody than I expected. Yeah. That's exciting. I'm going to roll right into the next pick, and I might make this quick on you guys. So I'm simply going to ask it this way. We're going to talk about the rookie of the year. Does anyone...
Is anyone here taking anyone who isn't Aaliyah Boston? I am not taking Aaliyah Boston. Yay! Jason, you're going to start things off. All right. Give it to us. It may not be as spicy or fun as a take as you guys want it to be. I'm going with Diamond Miller because on principle, I cannot vote for Indiana to get anything nice.
a strong argument has been made in favor of diamond miller really solid logic um gosh i get it too i do big i get it and i can't explain yet why but i do think the diamond pick is pretty solid if if
If Indiana has the flattiness of success as we might be expecting and her performance comes with it, or if people just look at it and be like, I couldn't possibly give this team... You're voting for a rookie of the year on a team that's going to win maybe four games? That's going to be hard. That's another good point.
Yeah. So I'm glad Jason actually officially has this down. I was wussy and I thought about putting Miller and then decided not to. But if, if I would have gone back and listened to our episode where, so we've interviewed both of these players during the college season. If you go back to, it would have probably been,
October, November at this point. But you can find interviews that we had with both Miller and Aaliyah Boston. And they're both amazing to talk to. I was really impressed with Miller going into this season where she was with Maryland on kind of a new look Maryland team after suffering an injury. And she had such a good year that just isn't talked about much because Maryland wasn't in the final four and not in the big college buzz that happened when Kaitlyn Clark was doing her thing and LSU was doing their thing.
she was incredible last year and had one of my favorite draft night quotes of anybody ever, which is, she just said straight up said like, I was lying when I said I wasn't thinking about making the jump to the WNBA all like all college season. Like I've, I've been thinking about it and I'm ready to go. So that, that makes me very excited to watch her play professional basketball this year, knowing that she's been gearing up for this for a while.
No, absolutely. I actually really like that pick in a lot of ways, and I think it just goes beyond her being, you know, a topic. Where I'm interested in this is that if there are other, like, Dark Horse picks, another one is on the links. I wouldn't be shocked to see someone like Dorothy Juhasz stand out. I've got one other, like, super Dark Horse pick for this, just for fun. If no one else has one, you don't have to have one. I'm just going to throw out Lou Lopez Seneschal.
Because I just feel like it. I don't know that she'll get the requisite playing time, but I just feel it. That's really what it comes down to so much with Rookie of the Year is there's a lot of rookies with high draft capital. Really, there's only one round of the draft that I think really matters for Rookie of the Year. Yeah.
And most of those players don't even necessarily get playing time right away. So there's usually just two or three players in the running for rookie of the year because they're actually out getting minutes.
Yeah, I fully agree. I'll say this on Boston. We can make this quick as we want to. I don't know that there's anything we can say about Aaliyah Boston that hasn't already been said. But when these drafts happen, and by that I mean drafts where there is an unequivocal top pick and someone who is coming in to be like a mover and a shaker in the league happens every few years. I think whenever that happens, in a way, like...
subconsciously they're sort of at the start of the year handed the rookie of the year. Yeah. And they have to do something and someone else has to do something for it to be taken away from them. Yeah. So that's the one you could call it cynical, but I just think like the clinical reason why it makes sense why it's Lee Boston. But I think on top of that, I, for, for as much as I don't expect to see the fever be successful as a team this year,
My hope and my prediction is that Boston will show enough promise that people may take more heart in the Atlanta fever than they have before by how they, you know, how she performs and what she puts together on the worksheet. Yeah.
I'm sorry. I said the wrong team, didn't I? You said Atlanta fever, but it's because we, we all want the fever to be elsewhere at this point. So I was, I was just, I was just going to let it slide. No, I was like, I, I felt it in my brain that I messed up somewhere, but, um,
And I think also potentially taking heart because if they have a good performance out of Boston and end up, let's say, in a 12th seed, and then let's say that their lottery keeps them in pretty good running for a potential hard draft pick, and then all of a sudden, you know, Leah Boston's now playing eventually with, I don't know, like Caitlin Clark or Paige Beckers. Oh, man. The Philly Fever are going to be so good in 2025. Really? The Toronto Fever? It's going to be amazing.
No, it's going to be something. But there you have it. Aaliyah Boston, Aaliyah Boston, Kyle has Boston as well. Aaliyah Boston, Logan. So three ways. And then Diamond Miller from Jason, which I think is not a whacked out pick. I actually think it makes a little – there's some sense there for sure. So I like that a lot. Let's get into what I think will be a fun piece of parody potentially, and that's Coach of the Year.
I'll go ahead and start this one since I had you guys start the last two. This one's really basic. I'm taking Sandy Brandello. And in a lot of ways, that's because they just gave one to
holy shit, Becky Hammond, my brain just shut off. It's 10.30 p.m. where we're recording. I just forgot Becky Hammond's name out of nowhere. But they already handed one to Becky Hammond, so might as well give them to the other one. But also, this would be a marked improvement for New York if they come in
In a top two seed, as people are expecting them, that's a marked improvement with a lot of new faces. And to be able to put a lot of those new faces together as good as they are, I think that says something about a coach's ability to find a system that works very quickly for them. And that says a lot about her. So I would put that camp in Brandella's name. And that's essentially where I go. There's no direct feedback to that. I'll pass it over to Logan. Yeah, I have Sandy as well.
It just comes down to kind of like Jason said with the MVP, I have a little bit of a formula when it comes to this. And it's a lot just based on expectations and record compared to the previous year. Obviously, expectations for the Liberty are sky high. So it's definitely possible that they could fall short of those.
But last year, they finished 16-20 just on the fringes of playoff contention. They actually had a pretty decent showing in the first round of the playoffs, but didn't really go anywhere. I think everyone has reached a consensus that already this is a top-two roster in the league. And if that comes to fruition...
It's probably going to be between Sandy and Becky Hammond. I think there are other teams that could be fun surprises. There's one in particular that I think is going to see a significant improvement in record, but it's not going to mean anything when compared to the Hammond and Brondello resume this coming year. Absolutely. So two picks for Brondello. Jason, how are you feeling?
So I'm going to go, this will kind of give away, uh, before the show, we were talking about how I kind of had a number three. This is going to give that away. Uh, I'm going to go with Eric Tebow. Uh, yeah, I, I do it that the mystics are,
are going to end up third going into the seeding. I think they're going to be kind of that one team that kind of rises above the rest of that four through 11 mess that kind of exists. And I think they're going to do it early in the season. I think they're going to be consistent. I think they're going to come out strong. Steve, you've already talked about Deladon, so I won't go into roster so much. And I think because they have a strong early part of the season, I think they're going to seem consistent.
and I think that's going to play well. So I think that Coach of the Year is going to go to Eric Thibault. I like that a lot. I'll go ahead and blow the spot, too, and say that I also will have Washington in third since that's part of why I've taken Deladon in the MVP. That makes a lot of sense. One thing I want to add to that is on top of what that performance would mean, this is also on top of the fact that one of the most respected coaches
in the league's history, who also happens to be your dad, is your current boss. That's a really interesting amount of pressure to be playing under. And to take that group to a three-seed, I mean, that's pretty impressive. So...
I like that pick for Eric Thibault. I like that one quite a lot. Kyle, this is interesting. More parody here. Kyle's taking Kurt Miller. So this ties, again, to I think the narrative is I see Kyle, and I don't want to put words in his mouth, but that's literally what I'm doing because...
He's not here at least yet. But it feels like that he has a lot of stock in the Sparks, which is really interesting with NECA, the MVP, Kurt Miller, Coach of the Year. Kurt Miller is no stranger to this award. And a lot of buzz came about his move. So I could see there being some stock in that around the corner. And if the Sparks find themselves in a top three position,
There is a discussion there. So again, I don't think it's necessarily out of the question and a decent pick a safer pick than some might, I might think based on how this year may shake out, but, but I like it.
I like the group we have here. So we've got two people picking Brandello. We've got Kurt Miller. We've got Eric Thibault. This is a fun group. Any last thoughts about coaches? I'm happy that we're kind of diversifying our portfolio of picks here so that our show as a group, we can claim like, oh, we had that for almost a third of the league. So that's really helpful for later in the season. Absolutely.
Absolutely. So let's move on forward to Defensive Player of the Year. Logan, I'm going to kick it right over to you. I think I've had Greiner as my Defensive Player of the Year every season until now that we've done this episode. And frankly, it's because when we first started the show, I didn't know who else to choose for Defensive Player of the Year.
I originally had Asia Wilson written down for this award because it's very easy to just put aces for all the awards at the end of the season. They're going to be so freaking good. But I wanted to have more fun than that. And I just want to talk about one of the players that I really adore on a team that I think is going to be really good. And that's Brittany Sykes. Brittany Sykes is my defensive player of the year. So I'm probably not going to get any points for that one, but...
I wanted to zig when others would zag on at least one of those. And this is where I decided to do it because I never get the defensive player of the year award right. Anyway, so, Sykes.
I think without having the word is it has been one of the best and most exciting defensive players in the league the past like three seasons. So for her to finally pick that up, it actually, yeah, all I'm saying is, and by the way, I think, uh, it was wind cider that called this out. I I'll have to remember what writer it was. I think it was Owen, uh,
She is the only 5'9 player in the league capable of blocking Brittany Greiner. So if we see that at all this year, that's if you're again, if you're new to the league, you know, some of the big names, not so many of like we'll call the medium names. She's one that I definitely would watch for this year. I like that a lot. Jason, defense player of the year. I am going to go to the New York Liberty for John Quill Jones.
Hey, just to make it quick, so am I. So I'm excited to hear what you have to say, because I agree with whatever you're about to say. I think that Jonquil Jones had the MVP not been part of the conversation. She has consistently put down one of the best defensive games for the last few seasons. And I think going to New York, having the spotlight on it, I think because MVP is not necessarily in the running, because you've got kind of this...
uh, Asia Stewie back and forth. I think that that's where the nod is going to be given is, is at the defensive player, the year level, which she wholeheartedly deserves. So yeah, those are just kind of my thoughts. I think it is kind of bonkers now that I'm looking at it, that, uh, she's never won the award. Um, she's been all defensive second team. She's been two time all defensive first team. She's obviously, uh, she was the 20, uh,
won yeah 2021 mvp uh she's won most improved she's been all around as far she was a sixth woman like she she's pretty much gotten everything uh in her this is her intercontinental title like this is everything uh under the sun outside of this uh literally under the sun um and i think her defensive prowess given that she hasn't won defense player of the year her defensive prowess is why new york was
very ecstatic to pick her up. Yeah. She's the transaction that people seem to forget compared to the fact, you know, because Stewie and VanderSloot happen at the exact same time. So I think
In a lot of ways, those took up a lot of energy. And we forget that another former MVP and dominant player and one of the best defensive players we've seen in a long time is coming to New York. And I think she's going to be one of the more stern needle makers because of what she could do on that side of the court. So that's why I went that way. Kyle, I love you. There's no pick that I'm more curious about. And you're not here to explain it. Kyle is taking Brittany Griner for Defensive Player of the Year.
And I think it's just because he wants that documentary made to see her come back and be as dominant as she's been. I think obviously if she plays at the level we've seen her play and we know what she can do on the court, there's no question that that's in the running.
But as Jason, a point that you have made that I think we all definitely agree with is I personally don't care what her stats or prowess is. The fact that she's back on the court and she's where she is right now is really all that matters. But
Man, wouldn't it be cool to see this happen though? At the same time. Yeah. I, I don't want this to sound like a criticism. I, I kind of just mean this more as an observation than anything. I think if Griner has a great year defensively and she's in the running for defensive player of the year with lots of other qualified candidates, she will win it. Yeah. Like it's, it's going to be so hard as of like, if you were a voter and you looked at five names on a page and Griner was one of them,
for everything going on with Griner for the past year to not be the tiebreaker basically for you. So I think if she's in the conversation, it's hers to lose because...
I think people like the narrative when it comes to the end of season award voting and stuff like that. That's not to say that she wouldn't necessarily be deserving anyway, and that I don't want to see it because she might be, and I do, but that's my, that's my sense is like, if she's having a top four or five defensive player in the league, like if she's all defensive first team, she's going to win the award basically. Does that make sense? Yes. I don't know. It makes perfect sense.
That makes complete sense to me. So, yeah, we've got Jason, myself, or John Cole Jones. Then we've got the Brittneys, Brittany Griner, Brittany Sykes, who, interestingly enough, spelled their name the same, which I like. It's a good year to be a Brittany. There are a lot of ways to spell Brittany, if you didn't know. Look it up.
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. Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences.
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 you heard about Indeed on this podcast.
Indeed.com slash blue wire. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. All right. Now we're getting – we're moving past our individual awards. If you're looking forward to hearing the Sixth Woman Award or – which I'm interested to see if they actually end up obviously rebranding that award eventually. But the Sixth Award and the Most Improved.
Here's the deal. That is always a crapshoot at this point in the year. I think we will revisit those awards mid-season when we've gotten some mojo. We'll give you an update on who's in the running. But in the past, it's always just been like, Steve, what player do you like? Jason, who do we like this year? When we know who the sixth players are...
We'll be able to point that out more. But at this point, it's kind of a crap shit. So we're going to move on to the team-level things. I'm going to jump in this real quick. We can make this one rapid fire. Let's get right to it. We'll give it as much attention as the WNBA's marketing seems to like to. The Commissioner's Cup, the Basketball Congeniality Award. Logan, who do you have winning the cup? I have Vegas. So sorry that it's boring, but I truly –
I know the Liberty are stacked. I think they're going to actually get off to a pretty mediocre start to the season, just because I think it's going to take that team a little bit of time before they really start clicking. And the Aces are going to need no time at all. They're going to be the best team the first half of the season. I feel you there.
Jason, what are your thoughts? I'm going to go with the Aces as well. My spice is actually going to be that I think they're going to beat the Washington Mystics in the Commissioner's Cup game. I think Washington will be a little bit more consistent. I think, Logan, you just mentioned this, but the Liberty are going to take a few games to gel. The Commissioner's Cup really rewards early season consistency. So I think it'll be Vegas over Washington in the Commissioner's Cup.
I like that. Both Kyle and myself have the liberty. I don't know. I'm fairly confident that they'll play the Mystics in this title game. I don't know for certain because really, like, I'm not as confident as you are to say, oh, they'll play this team instead. But I will say they're going to be without their head coach for two games. We'll see if that bears any significance.
Um, and if they're going to be coming off of any sort of, you know, your classic late finals fatigue or anything like that, if anything like that plays a level of sometimes we see this, we're a strong finals team that is taking on new players and trying to make them fit, uh,
has any sort of sluggishness, they might fall out of the running, but at the same time, it will be more so that we're going to see those teams play in this, the aces and Liberty play in this game. And I'll take New York for this as far as that's considered. So we've got two for New York, two for Vegas, two,
And we'll then move into our main predictions. Jason, I'm going to have you take the boot on this one because I have a feeling I believe you're taking a different route to those predictions as I am. And I like what you're going to be doing a little more than what Logan and I are doing.
Logan, I'm going to give you the choice. Do you want to do your 12 to 1 predictions first or do you want me to go first? I'll go for it. I'll try to set a foundation for us here that then you can riff off of. Because I was telling everybody before the show, and I think you guys agree, I think this is the hardest I've ever had in terms of predicting my eight playoff teams. This is the hardest time I've ever had.
Yeah, going top to bottom. Seasons past, it certainly felt like here's the upper crust teams. Here's the playoff teams that are going to be around 500, but good. And then here's just a couple bad teams that are going to bring up the rear. This year, trying to pick 5, 6, 7, 8 is like, well, I could see these teams not making the playoffs if things go bad. So with that, I will kick off with number 12 per tradition.
Indiana, I legitimately don't want the fever to have to move. I think it's a tragedy anytime a team moves. But it just seems like every year, no matter what they do,
It's just... It's constantly a rebuild. We're in like 8 years of rebuild now. I keep losing track. But Aaliyah Boston, I hope she has a great season. I really like a lot of the... I'm going to watch a lot of Fever games. I like the roster there. But I don't think they have enough to be better than anyone else in the league, frankly. Number 11 hurts even more. This is where I have Seattle. That's a big drop for the Storm. But...
Uh, yeah, the, the storm who were 22 and 14 last year and a legit playoff team. I think it's their turn, uh, to have just a complete down season where they have to retool. Um, that sucks because I love Jewel Lloyd and I think she's one of the stars of the league, but I think she's probably headed out after this year anyway. And this is going to be just a developmental year for Seattle. Um,
It's going to be weird. Since we've covered the league, we have not seen just like a really bad storm team. And in that theme... I'm sorry, guys. I hope this doesn't sound stupid, but Seattle is my 11. Connecticut is my 10. They're a completely different team than we've seen over the past several years. The Kirk Miller championship window era is closed. They are also just a team that's going to have to find a new identity and
Maybe they have some nice surprises this year, but I just don't see it. And I couldn't bring myself to put them in the playoffs even. I don't know what they're doing this year other than planning ahead for the years to come. Number nine, my first team out, if you will, who will not be in the playoffs. And I feel like this is wrong. This is where I put Minnesota.
Minnesota's got some good players. It feels like every year we expect them to finally bounce back and be really strong. And I think Nafisa Collier and Diamond Miller are really good one too.
I just don't know how much I trust them to be consistent on the defensive end of the floor. And that's been their bug for a little while now. So, I hope I'm wrong, but I've got them at 9. Somehow, someway, the Dallas Wings, who I thought were going to be my 11th seeded team this year, I have in the playoffs at number 8. Despite...
despite no Marina Mabry and just really not doing anything different than they've done in years past. Keep in mind that last year, I think the... What was it? Yeah, Dallas made the playoffs last year as the sixth seed, and they were 18-18, so they were exactly 500. So you don't necessarily have to be a 500 team to sneak into the playoffs, which is, I think...
I think what's going to happen here, I think they're going to be a game or two back. And for the record, I think probably four through 10 is going to be extremely tight. It's going to be kind of a chaos end of the season, which should be fun. Seven, I put the Sparks. This seems high. It feels high. Originally, I was kind of trying to put them higher because I think they will have a surprisingly fun year, but they still have a lot of stuff to figure out. Sparks at seven.
Phoenix at six. I don't have a ton of notes there. I think they're good enough to be 500. And that's exactly where I have them is the 60 where they were. They were miserable away from home last year. And they just had a lot on their plate that wasn't basketball related. If they just pick up a couple extra road games, they're going to be in the playoff mix. They'll be fine. This is the one that I'm like, ooh,
They might miss the playoffs and I might look stupid, but I have Chicago at five. I don't think James Wade and Clea Copper are five seed good, but they're really good.
And a coach who's like a coach of the year type of coach and a star who I think is a superstar should be enough to have Chicago in the mix. And this is just where the chips fell when I was trying to arrange my ranking. So congratulations, Sky fans. I've got you at five. So I probably just screwed you out of a playoff spot. This is also a surprise. I have Atlanta at number four.
I would like to ask you guys to join me on the Atlanta is going to be good and fun train. Sorry, did I miss a pick? So you did your five? Oh, sorry. Yeah. Chicago at five.
Who was your six? Phoenix. Sorry, I didn't have a lot about Phoenix. Sorry, I must have missed that. No, no, you're fine. So starting with the playoff teams, I've got Dallas at eight, Sparks at seven, Phoenix at six, Chicago at five. Atlanta I've got as a top four team this year because somebody has to be four. And I think they're doing a lot of the right things.
Uh, if nothing else, I, I agree with the wind cider article that has them as, uh, perhaps the best league pass team this year. Um, Ryan Howard's going to be there in her second year. I don't know. I, I just think that they've got, they finally have some people in the front office and on the court that are doing the right things and turning that team around after being just a train wreck two seasons ago. Um, and again, somebody has to be four. So, uh,
Here, this isn't going to be nearly as spicy to pick as I thought two hours ago, because it sounds like a lot of us are already kind of along this line of thinking. But I've got the Mystics at three, and I really gave them a shot at two. Because I think they're going to start out the year better than the Liberty and probably have...
It might come down to a one-game difference between the Mystics and the Liberty. I think the regular season record is going to be maybe not... The Liberty might have a regular season record that is not as stellar as people think. But in the playoffs, I think they are going to be the team that people think. But Mystics, Deladon, Tebow, you've heard it this whole episode. We're high on them. We like them.
We we've, they've got the best rebel jerseys of the new bunch. Uh, I got them at three. Uh, I really did give them a chance at number two, but ultimately you just, it's hard to bet against Stewie going to New York and joining everything that's going on there. Um, that's why I've got Sandy as my coach of the year Liberty too. And then Vegas, uh,
It's not very flashy. It's not very exciting to pick the reigning champs as the number one. But I imagine it's not going to be an uncommon take to believe that Vegas did nothing but get better this offseason. And they've still got a great coach. They've still got prime Asia. And that would be enough to get them in the playoffs and scary.
And then alongside... I kind of made this joke earlier, but Kelsey Plum is legitimately an MVP caliber basketball player who's just one of Asia's teammates in Vegas. That's how good that roster is. So that's my 1 through 12. We haven't talked about it before the show or anything in the chat. So I legitimately do not know where you have...
your four through 11, like either of you guys. So I'm excited to see how off I am on those picks. I think the rest of it is probably fairly consensus, but we'll, we'll see. Yeah. I'm kind of in a similar note of, I'm not sure like if like, cause I made a couple of changes just now and I'm not sure if they were influenced by you or I have felt that different because sincerely going from about four to 11, maybe five to 11, um,
I could see my four at 11 and my 11 at four. Like who knows? Like there's a lot. It's scary. My personal notes on my own picks is I don't know why I have Dallas at eight when I think they got worse this off season. And I don't know how I feel about Atlanta and Chicago being my four or five, like firmly in the playoffs type teams. When I think Atlanta is going to be good, but Chicago also is going to be completely different team than we've seen in the past. Yeah.
Absolutely. So a lot of interest there. I'll go ahead and dive this in. So we'll do regular season, like the 12-1 stuff, and then we'll go back around to do what we think the playoff final. You don't have to say all the playoff rounds, but we'll just say who's in your final and who's going to win it all. So we'll end on that note. But I'll just give this a kick. I'll try to make this as snappy as possible. The Indiana Fever is the 12th seed.
They've given me no reason to do anything more than that. They've given me no reason to believe that they're going to win more games than they won last year, which was five. They've given me no reason to believe that they have any full and honest emotional investment in the future of this team based on how they have chosen their draft picks. I want to say that a player like Aaliyah Boston is enough that they wouldn't squander that pick immediately after taking them up. But after the last four years, I just can't say that. I have no idea, uh,
How they're necessarily running that team. Now, they may want to say that some of these players haven't been developing the way that they've wanted them to. And that's a fever problem. That's not a problem on any of these players.
And then after dropping a player like Destiny Henderson, I just don't fully understand what's going on here. I would like to see this team flourish. I would like to see a lot of high-level talent come out of here and see some things pick up. I think just about everyone, in one way or another, wants to see this team succeed. Because we don't necessarily want a team to hit the pit of obscurity and run into problems, but...
You've given me no reason to believe in that, and that's unfortunate. So the Fever are going to be at 12. This is where things get really interesting. The Connecticut Sun, I have at 11. I think their drop-off is as big as any team we've seen in a very long time. You lost your head coach, who was kind of the core to making that entire roster work.
You lost your MVP. I don't necessarily see this team being cohesive. Do I think they're going to be in the tank for a long time? Possibly not. I think there's potential for them to maintain some things. And they picked up some talent that I think is formidable. I actually really like, for instance, Beck Allen's one of my favorite players. And I like the potential of what she can do over there.
So there's going to be something there. But I think for one, the nine through 11 are probably all going to be within like one to two games of each other for me.
It's going to be a close run, and I think I see them on the outside looking in. I also have the Sky with the big drop-off. I have them at 10. I'm just not seeing it when I look at their roster. Look at the core of that team and what's made that team successful is more or less wiped out outside of Kalia Copper. Now, is Kalia Copper the type of player that can work with Courtney Williams and Elizabeth Williams and potentially help that team win?
pick up some momentum and do better and potentially make the playoffs? Yeah, it's possible. I'm just not feeling it. I think this is an outside looking in and is a really good case to see just how effective James Wade can be as a coach and how he responds to this year's performance is actually what I'm most interested in. Not even necessarily this performance, but where we see things. Also, if this is their bid,
as the market closest to Iowa City, if this is their bid to take a backseat for a couple years and suddenly be in the Caitlin Clark sweepstakes, kudos to you. That's a good point. It's actually a masterclass. So I would almost expect them to intentionally take 12th in that case. So there you go for that.
I have the storm just barely missing the playoffs at nine. Um, I expect jewel Lloyd to put in big numbers. I actually expect this team to overperform what some may believe. I think there's a lot of potential for them to make some things happen. And I don't necessarily see their gap between eight and nine being huge, but, uh,
It's just really hard to believe that they're going to outperform when you are just so much of what's made the storm, the storm over the years is now gone. And a lot of the spirit of that is gone and it's going to be hard to see how that picks up. I'm very intrigued to see where drooling response to this. If,
they really try and put an honest effort to build a team around her or if she's going to be living elsewhere next year, it's going to be hard to tell, but I do have them barely losing out in the playoffs. With that said, I have the sparks eight, uh, in an only just situation. I like the improvements that they're making. I don't know that they're enough to do much more than that, but they were in the tank last year. And so a playoff appearance, I think is more than enough for them. Also, uh,
given all of the insane drama that's gone on in aces sparks matchup, uh, or a Liberty sparks matchup are both pretty spicy in the first round. Who knows how that looks? Yeah. Uh, number seven, I have the dream and about 10 minutes ago I had the dream at 10. So I don't know how I'm feeling yet. Uh,
but I gave this roster another look. I just kind of pulled them up again. And there's a lot to like about this. I'm going to say this Atlanta might be the most fun team that isn't going to be considered a super team this year. They have just a lot of really fun talent. Uh,
That's on top of the fact that I expect Ryan Howard to potentially play at an all-star level. Haley Jones, I wasn't high on as a draft pick, but damn it, the dream kept her, and not a lot of teams kept their draft picks this year. And I'm going to give that some stock, and I'm going to believe in Haley Jones against my own judgment because they actually held on to her, and that's a good thing. Yeah.
But I think you're going to see a lot more coming out of Eric McDonald. B-Rob is always a great veteran to have on your team. Cheyenne Parker is one of the most underrated players in the league and has been for her entire career. One of the most underrated pickups of this entire season is Alicia Gray going to Atlanta, which I think is huge. But the biggest thing that I think could help this team get themselves into an actual playoff position is the...
Not official, but like the talent-wise return of A.D. Durr on the court because one of my favorite draft picks we'd ever have, I loved watching them play in Louisville and due to everything that they had to deal with
that there had to deal with the sickness and COVID and not being able to play at a full level. I think this is a chance and I think it might have an impact for Atlanta. Atlanta's fun. And I think they have the potential to, to get somewhere in the mix. The Mercury is at six and I just, sorry, dang it. The links are at six. And I think that's just because I pretty much had them at six for the last four years. Right.
But that's a good team and a good roster, and I expect a lot more –
Just I expect them to grow a lot more over the next couple of years. I just don't think Sherry knows any other way to coach team. So I could see them in a higher position over the next couple of years. But I like the pieces of what they're putting together right here. I've got the Mercury at five. That's another one that just kind of feels right and makes some sense. They were a five, by the way, when they were last in the finals. Hmm. Hmm. I'm not taking the Mercury to the finals. Just to be clear.
I'm not doing that, but I do have the Mercury at five. I think they'll put some things together. I think one interesting sticking point obviously is how are we, how do we expect Reiner to play on the court, but also scouting and Smith will not be apparent this year. So it's going to be an interesting case for them there. If you've been playing along, this is where it gets interesting. I'm scared. I've got the Dallas wings at four. This is where Logan and I are on a whole later. I am scared. I have no logic.
to fully explain this, you made the point that you thought the roster did get worse. And in some ways, yes, because we all, I think could be an agreeance that we thought if you actually put a lot of energy surrounding Marina Mabry, this team gets better. And I agree with that. And I was really upset to see her leave Dallas. That said,
I'm kind of in love with this roster. I kind of really like a lot of what's going on. Yeah. And I think they're going to overperform. I don't know why. I don't know what to tell you.
They have a former Rookie of the Year in Crystal Dangerfield. They're actually one of the most conveniently sized team. If they actually give Seneschal some play, Natasha Howard has high potential to make some noise there. Then you look at Tierra McCowan. Tierra McCowan. Yeah. Yeah. McCowan, Satu Sobley is playing on. They basically took a lot of those lottery furloughs
first round picks that the other teams didn't invest in and then she took all of them we're building the whole plane out of the first round queer who we haven't really seen perform yet and could be a huge you know a huge move for them obviously maddie segrest has the potential to make a lot of noise we're not going to really see much of diamond to shields unfortunately but like this ashley jones there's just a lot of cool potential in this team and
I guess the main question I have is, are Riki and Gumbawale going to allow that to grow and to work?
And to develop, and I know she's not the head coach, so that sounds funny, but is this going to be a case where she kind of tries to shoulder this entire team herself? Or is she going to try and elevate the rest of that squad? Because if they work, they're actually one of the best big teams size-wise and could be a defensively stout and could make some things happen. That said, my four could be an 11-11.
And I wouldn't lose any sleep. It would be the exact, like I would expect the exact same. That's how weird that these predictions have been. But I have the wings at four. For that reason, I keep looking at the roster and I just keep liking what I see. I don't have any stats to support anything.
I'm just going off my gut here. The Mystics are three for the exact same reason that everyone else has talked about it. I think if there's any team that is going to disrupt the flow of this crew, it's going to be Washington. And I think Deldon can be a big push for that. But that's on top of some other building blocks that have been looked over. Natasha Cloud is a whole different Natasha Cloud than in 2019. Yeah.
and is going to stand up. I think Shakira Austin has the potential for an all-star type light performance. Do I necessarily think that means she's going to be an all-star? Not necessarily, but I think it's within the cards. Ariel Atkins has improved. Misha Hines-Allen has improved. You've got the return of Christy Tolliver, which basically means you've got the best assistant coach in the league playing on your roster. Amanda Zowie-Bee is defensively stout.
I like this team a lot. I think they're going to believe they can face up with any team in the league. They're going to be fun to watch. I have the Liberty at two for every reason that Logan said. I have the Aces at one for all the reasons Logan said. That's my 12 to one.
Very cool. I'm really glad we didn't discuss rankings before we opt on Mike, because I literally filled out year 12 and year 1 through 3 before you even started. But I had no idea what teams you were high on, what teams you were low on. And it definitely affects how I think about my own rankings now looking at yours next to mine. Yeah.
So I'm excited for Jason's to further obscure what I think about some of these kind of mid tier teams. Well, I hope I don't, I'll try to go through each team. So I'm going to do this a little differently. And I'm sending you guys a picture right now in our group chat. I legitimately went through and wrote down my one through 12. And then just for kicks and giggles, because we've been having this conversation, I completely inverted my four through 12. And it seems just as reasonable. Yeah.
Like... Like... So, Jason... Oh, that's scary. Jason has a habit of going last when we record stuff like this and always having a fun twist.
There's also one very, very specific note that I'm so excited to hear about. Jason, I'm just going to let you have the floor. You have as much time as you need. So anyways, I will talk about each team briefly and kind of give some of my thoughts as to where they are and what my thoughts were in terms of my rankings. That being said, here's how I'm going to do my rankings. Oh, I'm guessing you guys were responding to one of my spoilers. Yeah.
At number 12, the 2024 Toronto Ice. The Toronto Ice, currently named the Indiana Fever, are going to finish in a dismal position, I think less than five wins.
Tied for fourth place, I have in no particular order Seattle, Phoenix, Dallas, Connecticut, Minnesota, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. You have to tell us which one you believe in more because I'm looking at these two images and one of them is very close to my rankings. You want to know which one it is? I honestly, when you were like, oh, I took one and I took one list for my 4-11 and then I inverted it. I actually, honestly...
Was ready to ask, which one did you invert? Because it really is hilarious. So as you guys see it, and as I'll announce it here, is my list that I put together is the one on top for you guys in the picture. So
I have Atlanta at 11. I think I still hurt from 2018-2019 when they went from the number two team to absolute trash. And I have trouble trusting them. So that's maybe more based on my trust issues than anything else. I have Los Angeles. I talked about this earlier at number 10. I talked about this earlier with Kurt Miller. I believe in Kurt Miller's system. I also believe that it is not a system that gets implemented in...
in one offseason. I think this is something that three, four years he's going to be back in that perpetually hunting a title situation. I just don't think it's going to be this year. Chicago lost too much for me to believe in them, so I put them at number nine as kind of a first out.
Minnesota, just because they kind of fall in the middle of my thoughts. I think Cheryl Reeves is great. I think they have some good talent on that team, but there's also nothing special going on. I've got them as kind of my last in. I see Connecticut falling. I really didn't know what to do with them. They lost players. They lost a coach. But...
They were kind of like, eh, for me, which put them right in the middle. I agree with Steve. I actually like Dallas's roster. I like some of the stuff that's going on there. I like their size a lot. And sometimes when you're in these close games, an inch or two really matters. And I believe Dallas has some really good size on their team. Phoenix, there's going to be a lot of story going on there. But the one thing you can count on is DT being consistent and reliable. And so for that reason, I don't think Phoenix will drop.
Seattle, I just want to see have fun. I know that there's a lot of hurt going on. They lost almost everything. That being said, Jewel is amazing and I think can lead a team if she gets the right notes to play alongside. I don't know that that's the case, but I want it to be the case. So I put them at four.
And then you go into the top three, and I won't harp on the listeners' ears too much because it's very much the same reasoning as before. Number three, Washington. Number two, New York. And number one, Las Vegas. And I am on the same boat with Logan. I think that New York-Washington is going to be close. I think Washington is going to be number two until about game 28 to 30. And I think New York will jump them towards the end of the season and get that two seed going into the playoffs.
That's incredible. So that's what it's insane how different all these are, but I think how plausible they are at the same time. I'm interested in the Mystics piece. I really am intrigued. Even after record, I hope Kyle does in some way publicize what his 12 to 1 would look like, especially with how much stock seems to be going into the Sparks for him. I'm intrigued by that.
Now let's move on to kind of playoff predictions. I'm not saying you guys have to actually say who wins each matchup. Let's just go ahead and put it down to who we have in the final, who we have taking the championship. This may actually end up being boring to some people because I have a feeling we all probably have the same matchup. And I'm sorry. I tried to be like the Zag person in this and I couldn't.
So I'll just go ahead and kick it off, and then we'll go in monitor order for the sake of me. I have the Aces beating the Liberty. I have the Liberty winning the Commissioner's Cup. I think the Liberty will be in a situation where they're going to take that game uber seriously, and I think you're going to see a Liberty team as talented as they are right now can beat any team once. I think the Aces are road-tested and –
are in a better situation to win three out of five. So I have the Aces repeating. Also, a part of that is I just want to see a repeat champion before I go into the ground. And we haven't seen one in over 20 years. And the Aces might as well be that team because they're that good. And they just picked up Candice Parker. And honestly, in my opinion, to a bigger extent, Alicia Clark, if you ask me.
it's just a very good team obviously the Liberty are going to be incredible team as well but I have them winning that I don't know what the series will be whether that's in four or five games whatever but I
I think you'll see a two-time champ. Kyle, for the sake of time, agrees with me as well. I don't know what his reasoning behind that is, and I hope to hear it soon because I think it's interesting. Logan, I'm going to pass the buck over to you. Actually, Jason, you went last last time, so I'll let Logan go last this time. Jason, what's your finals matchup? Who's your champ? In the name of parody and doing something interesting, I've got the Aces over the Liberty. It's not interesting or parody at all. Aces over Liberty, I genuinely think that's the league we're looking at this year is two super teams battling it out.
Aces, aces, aces. Logan, what you got? I kind of have a rule where if I'm watching like a broadcast and everybody on the Thursday Night Football panel has a unanimous vote, I just assume like, all right, so we're missing something. Because sports, like these are high-level athletes competing their guts out. And there's no way that it's just going to be, at least even on paper, there's no way it should just be unanimous ever. Yeah.
Um, but as badly as I wanted to take first, the mystics over the Liberty and the semis, which I didn't. And then the Liberty over the aces and the finals, which I didn't, I have the aces over the Liberty as well. Uh, and I, I think now it seems obvious because they're the reigning champs and it just feels like they're the best team, uh,
I think by the end of the season, it will still feel obvious that we are just in the Aces era right now. We've had Seattle eras. We've had Minnesota eras. We had the Comets. Some teams have just had their windows where nobody could climb the mountain with them. Maybe future years, maybe next season, the Liberty do it because I think the Aces are going to be good for a while. But...
This summer, I just don't see anyone beating them in a series. And again, I tried to at least have the Mystics in the finals to kind of mix it up. But I don't think anyone besides the Aces are going to take out Stewie in a series. It's just... She's unguardable. And I think Vegas just has so much offense that they can handle the Liberty like nobody else can. Yeah.
So I hope we're all dead wrong, frankly, because not that it wouldn't be exciting to see that happen, but I just always get nervous when I see everybody has an identical answer to anything in sports because it's just never that simple.
So, you can tell by the way we all picked. We picked one through three identical, but our fourth pick is literally like... I picked a team that you guys don't even have in the playoffs. Steve picked a team that I don't have in the playoffs.
Jason picked Seattle, who I have the 11th seed. We think we know who's good, and then everything else is like, I have no idea. This is a weird year where the 4 seed became the 5th. So the truth is somewhere in the middle. Maybe we have some idea, but maybe the teams at the very top aren't so clear-cut either. I just have a hard time. Logically, I can't reason
That's not a good sentence. I was going to say, I can't reason a reason for Vegas to not take home the championship this year. Other than they're going to win the Commissioner's Cup, and it feels like there's a curse on the Commissioner's Cup, but they did win it and the championship last year, so they've already proven we can do it. Yeah. Are they just that team? I think this is interesting because I don't even know if this becomes like, oh, well, the Liberty...
are like the second fiddle. I just look at like the 2024 is just going to be bonkers all over again. Because by then, you've got two seasoned high talent teams coming up against each other. Yeah, I won't go on record now saying who's going to have more rings between Asia and Stewie because there's just a lot that can happen there. But it really feels like we are in the heart of the Vegas Aces era right now in the WNBA. I know it's been a while since a repeat champion, but...
I just, you know, for the sake of argument, it's hard to say that a Liberty team who we haven't even seen on the floor yet can be one of the best rosters the league has ever seen.
Yeah, they're absolutely having a moment. And I think it's, you know, it's intriguing and it's interesting. I think in our minds, this episode feels like it's ending on a boring note because we all agreed on the same pick and it's the same team that won the title last year. But if this were to come to fruition, as it looks like, it'll be anything but boring on the court. Yeah.
I think one thing that we're forgetting if we're looking at a year where the Aces potentially dominate and win the title again is that team's a hell of a lot of fun to watch play basketball. You know, this is not...
a knockdown drag out type basketball team. They're very dynamic and they're very good. Yeah. I think the teams that are going to be really good are going to be fun styles of basketball. And then obviously based on our rankings, there's going to be some surprises too. And I'm excited to find out who those are. I, we need to come up with some bet for who finishes above the other between Atlanta and Dallas, because we could not be more all over the, like I'm looking at our three rankings back to back to back. And we're just, we're,
throwing darts badly trying to figure out where those teams are going to finish. And then there's Phoenix just holding steady at five and six. Like, yeah, but yeah, it's I'm, I'm super pumped to find out if, if we're right about Washington. I think we aren't the only show and the only people talking about how Washington is a little bit of a sleeper. So I hope that the expectations don't exceed what they're capable of.
It might be really interesting to see typically very good involved teams like Connecticut and Seattle and Chicago bottom out. We haven't seen that in several years. Don't know how that, you know, what the reaction to that is going to be. And of course, everybody's confused about what the Sparks are going to do. So we've got that going for us.
Yeah, there's a lot of teams on the rise. There's a lot of teams we've gotten very used to being good, potentially falling. This is very much a new face on this league and how it's going to look. And the hope is that that new face continues to shift by expanding the league and seeing some of that talent shift. What's going to be interesting is until that happens, because it's going to be a while until we see a 13th or 14th team on the court, is that
I think the aces and the liberty are going to be the narrative up until that point when you start spreading the talent across 14 teams. And that's going to be that narrative that I think picks things up. And I think that's going to be a pretty big deal. Logan and I talked pretty endlessly last week about the frustration that it felt like the WNBA didn't really try to expound off of the moment that the women's NCAA tournament had.
uh, with LSU and Iowa and Clark and, and South Carolina and all of this that was going on. Um, and they didn't really pick up on, on that level of things, but the one saving grace for it may be this incoming rivalry and what that's going to do to pick people up. Cause on top of it being a potentially high season rivalry for several years, it's also a collection of phenomenal basketball players. Undeniably the players who, uh,
They have a collection of eight to 10 players who are very much at the top of my list of, if I have someone who's trepidatious to get into women's basketball, I would point to that player until you watch them.
If I have someone who's like, I'm more into the NBA and I'm more about dunking and I want to see this and that, go watch Aja Wilson. Go watch Bree Stewart. Go watch Courtney Vandersloot. Go watch John Quayle Jones. Go watch Candice Parker. These are the players that you go like, Kelsey Plum, watch them play basketball and then tell me it's not exciting. I think it's going to be a cavalcade. It's going to be a good time. So I find that interesting.
I'm excited to see that Liberty documentary that's apparently coming out soon, but I think it's premature. It's just, it's going to be an interesting time. Yeah. I, we're fortunate that we live roughly a seven hour drive from Vegas and this year's Vegas roster and last year's Vegas roster is
Are the type of teams that you're like, hey, we're going to at some point this summer, I don't know when we need to make the drive out there to see them. And I think it does wonders for the league. As much as I hate when people say this about the NBA, and I know why they say it, it does wonders for the league to have a team like that in New York and in Washington and in Vegas. And...
I think that is exciting. We all want to see the sport grow. We want to see people understand that it's like women's basketball is basketball and it's fun. And so it's going to be fun to see some of the stars that maybe have some name recognition, like back on the court doing their thing this year. I think Reiner and Deladon definitely chief among those.
Absolutely. I'll tell you what I'm most excited for as well when it comes to this potential matchup. The fact that when the Aces and Liberty play in the finals, the Aces are going to put a Vegas jersey on their Statue of Liberty. That's true. And that's just going to be really fun. That's a great point. That was a good time.
when they did that last, and I'm excited for them to do it again. I actually think there needs to be a sort of monument deal where if New York... A Statue of Liberty bet. Takes it, yeah. There it is, right there. The winner gets the other Statue of Liberty. I understand one is real and has prowess in meeting the people, and it would be a disgrace for it to be removed, but if Vegas wins, they get the real Statue of Liberty, and if New York wins, they get...
This is the worst thing I've ever said. Or maybe they get something like New York wins the MGM Grand or something like that. If they get the pyramid. We'll ship you the tiny Eiffel Tower and the Stratosphere roller coaster. You get the Stratosphere. You get the fake Space Needle. Like...
Or like, you just get Siegfried and... You can have the Blue Man Group. No! Wow. Like, they belong to you. And that's it. I don't know. I'm confident in the Aces winning the championship this year. But I'm not bet the Blue Man Group confident. That's my new... That's my official new... That's my new, is that your final answer? My new, like, you sure about that phrase? Like, you bet the Blue Man Group on that? Like...
But that said, I'm looking forward to a very exciting season of basketball. It's always nice to have games up and running again because now we actually get to talk about real stuff and real basketball happening on a basketball court, which we haven't been able to do since late March. And so it's going to be a good time. So if you're listening to this after Friday, you've already seen the first stretch of games, but games kick off on the 19th, I believe,
We'll be right back.
And then just a whole weekend full of games. Get into it. Get excited about it. Watch everything. Take it all in. And we'll be right here next week ready to talk about all of it and then some because it's finally basketball time. Let's do this. Let's get into it. Until then, thank you so much for listening to this prediction episode. WNBA Nation. I'm Steve Fortman. I'm Jason Snow. I'm Logan Jones. And we got you next time.
I should be on your YouTube.