← No Offseason: The Athletic Women's Basketball Show
No Offseason: The Athletic Women's Basketball Show
Was Caitlin Clark's First Week a Success? And why are the Aces Under Investigation Again?
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- [00:02]
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- [03:23]
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- [04:57]
Zena Kaeda
For the Athletic I'm Zena Kaeda and this is the Athletic Women's Basketball Show. Welcome to the Athletic Women's Basketball show where we are here to talk all things women's hoops. Whether you're a die hard fan that eats, sleeps and breathes the game or you're just a casual fan looking to learn more, make sure you subscribe to this pod wherever you get your Pods to stay up to date with us. Also, subscribe to the Athletic. You don't want to miss out on our year round in depth coverage of the game you love. I am joined today by athletic women's basketball writers Sabrina Merchant and Ben Pickman. As always. And let's go through what we're going to cover today or what we call the scout. First up, I got to give a shout out to the Bay Area. There was a Valkyries block party and I'm going to talk a little bit about it before we really get into things. Then what is going on with these charter planes? I don't know. Hopefully Sabrina and Ben know because I'm so confused as to what's happening. I thought this was a positive. I don't know. We'll see. We're going to get into it. Then of course we have to talk about first week of WNBA action. What's going on? Sabrina's got her power rankings updated and you know, there's been a lot of talk about Caitlin Clark's game and we wouldn't be doing our jobs if we didn't talk a little bit about it. And then last but not least, City of Las Vegas ponied up some money, but apparently not everybody's happy about it or at least they have some questions. We're going to talk a little bit about the Aces investigation as well. All right, so let's dive in. First up, the Valkyries block party. The 13th team of the WNBA was officially announced in May by the Golden State warriors, bringing on a new sister organization in the Valkyries. And they officially had a block party to welcome the organization to the Bay out in San Francisco right in front of their building Chase center where the Valkyries will be playing in 2025. And I had the chance to emcee was awesome folks. It was fun. It was unreal crowd like you guys were really, really for those of you that were there, appreciate you guys being incredibly kind and also dancing, having a good time. The weather was perfect and it was super cool to see all of the people to come out from the Bay Area to support court gape performed. E40 performed even after having to be rerouted in traffic, which is the most Bay Area thing you could possibly ask for. Kehlani came and spoke a few words. That was pretty cool to share the stage with her. She even made a little bit of a call. I asked her which person she would want to come to the team, be one of the first draft recruits and she said Paige Beckers folks. So she knows a Little bit about basketball. That was a great option for her. Paige Buckets to be the first person drafted to the WNBA Golden State Valkyries. But it was a lot of fun. Lots of fun music, lots of fun dance breaks, all of the above. The Valkyries are in great hands when it comes to the new fan base. There was at the point that we had the show, the whole block party. 10,500 deposits already for the Valkyries. I think Chase center holds up to 18,000. So folks, put your deposits in. You want to be in the building. Super cool to see this expansion throughout the W. Hopefully, of course, more teams expected two more by 2026. So hopefully they also get the same vibe at their block parties and their announcements and all their rollouts. But shout out to everyone that was there. Particular shout out to Claire. Appreciate you coming up to say hello to me afterwards at Gotts. Just loving the fact that she is a new listener, new lover of women's basketball and enjoying our show to learn about the game. All of you out that are listening to learn about the game and using us as a safe space to do so. We appreciate you. All right, that's enough about a team that doesn't even exist yet. Let's talk about the W. Sabrina and Ben, last week we talked about a really cool thing that the WNBA announced and that was charter planes. In wanting to make sure that the athletes of the WNBA were safely arriving to their games without too much trouble, without long delayed connections, all of the above that they had dealt with in the past, they announced charter planes. And let's just be real. We cannot deny the fact that the question around Caitlin Clark and the safety and the visibility of players like her and Angel, Reese, etc. Came into question. And so Kathy Engelbert found some money in the budget and announced a charter plane rollout. But that rollout wasn't as easy or smooth as I think the W wanted it to be. There were some teams flying charter to their games and then there were some teams that weren't. I need somebody to explain this to me. Ben, Sabrina, break it down.
- [10:16]
Ben Pickman
Yeah. So the WNB season kicked off and just on the eve of it, as you mentioned, Xena, the league announced that a full charter program would be going into effect this season as soon as practical. And there was kind of an ambiguity about when exactly that would be. Some teams, like the Indiana Fever, for instance, flew charter to their first game against the Connecticut sun, which took place on May 14. They had a big plane. There was a video that went around that Erica Wheeler was streaming on Instagram or Instagram Live, and it showed just, you know, the relaxation, the amenities, and the space of the plane. One of the things that happened last week, though, is that some teams flew charter, like the Indiana Fever, to and from their games, and many did not. I think the word was that, you know, some of these longer trips out to Seattle, for instance, the Minnesota Lynx flew out to Seattle and flew charter, flew private. And some of these trips that involved a little bit more connections. The Indiana Fever, for instance, played in Connecticut, a city that is known for being, you know, in Uncasville, Connecticut, a city that is known for being hard to get to. So that was kind of the initial setup across the league. And there was a lot of questions that players had. On Monday, on the eve of the season, Kathy Engelbert actually held two sessions with players. One of them, at least I know, was more than an hour long in which, you know, players kind of fielded questions to the commissioner. And really, the sentiment in talking to players that Engelbert voiced was just to be patient and that they didn't have a lot of the answers. I should say that, you know, despite the even rollout players, from what I've been told, like, they. On this call, when they ask questions, we're all like, we're really happy this is happening. Like, this is a moment for celebration. This is a moment of positive change. They just wanted more information. They wanted a game plan, as one other source told me on it. Then what happened is last Thursday, as we taped this podcast, just before the Indiana Fever coincidentally's home opener against the New York Liberty, a WNBA spokesperson confirmed that beginning on May 21, so the day that this episode is coming out, all teams would begin to fly charter for every game. With two notes, notable planned exceptions. A bus ride between Brooklyn and Uncasville, Connecticut, where the Liberty and Sun play and Indianapolis and Chicago, because of just the proximity, that it actually might save time between those two routes. So, you know, it looks like from here on out, despite kind of a little bit of an uneven start and some ambiguity to open the season that, you know, beginning really this week, teams are going to be flying on a full charter program to all of their road games.
- [12:46]
Zena Kaeda
Okay, so when you think about what the WNBA was hoping to do versus the real PR and the communications around it, where was the disconnect? Like, what happened when it came to the communication? Why was it so awkward in the way that it was communicated?
- [13:04]
Ben Pickman
It's a good question, I think. Honestly, I'm not really sure, but I do think the word disconnect or surprise is something that, you know, is like a feeling that was felt around the league. Like a lot of people, again, were really happy that this change is going into place, but it did seem to be thrown upon people pretty suddenly. General managers, as Sabrina and I reported on the day that the initial news came out, we talked to multiple who said that, you know, they were as surprised as I was or as you were, or as anyone really was. Players voiced that same. That same kind of sentiment. There was just a little bit of a confusion, you know, back in April at the draft, Kathy Engelbert was asked about the travel policy, and she said that really there would be no changes or they were not expecting any changes at that time. And suddenly, you know, a month later, we have this momentous change, especially on the eve of the season, where teams for a while were in, not to use a flight term, but like a little bit of a holding pattern, pun intended, there, I guess, where they were not sure towards the end of last week if they were going to be flying charter or flying commercial, that they had just found out, you know, a day or two or three or just a few days before, you know, their actual planned schedule, that they would be flying charter. You know, that led to a little bit of a scramble on some teams, but it was in the end like a positive scramble if you were being, I guess, upgraded from a commercial flight to a private flight.
- [14:26]
Zena Kaeda
Okay, well, Sabrina, I gotta ask you, how much did you take into consideration whether a team flew charter or commercial when you were looking at your power rankings this week?
- [14:37]
Sabrina Merchant
It's just so interesting the way this was rolled out. Just to add on to what Ben was saying, because for so long the WNBA has prohibited charter flights because they don't want to create a competitive disadvantage between the teams that can afford to fly their players charter and the ones that cannot. And then you look at like, Indiana gets to fly charter to Connecticut for their opener, while Connecticut flew back to Indiana for their second game that happened on Monday and did not fly charter. So there's just a little, like you said, a little disconnect on what was allowed to happen and what wasn't. And frankly, travel hasn't been the number one item on my list in terms of evaluating teams thus far. But we'll get to that in just a second. Ben, did you have something you wanted to add about travel?
- [15:16]
Ben Pickman
Yeah, I mean, one, there's a number of benefits that players have talked about, right? Health and safety, security, just like general well being, being treated like a high level professional athlete. But you asked a question, Zena, to Sabrina, about the basketball impact. And that's one of the things that I've heard some coaches also talk about this week that I wasn't actually expecting or didn't think as much about as it related to this change. Is that because they're flying charter in a season that is so condensed, like there's, you know, the schedule, the practice schedule, the shoot around schedule that some teams might have and put in place is actually, or like could be very different than it would be if they were flying commercial. An example would be Indiana, for instance. They flew out via charter plane last Monday to Connecticut. They flew out in the afternoon. They were able to practice in Indiana on Monday morning, you know, a day before their game, board their flight in the afternoon and then have a shoot around on Tuesday morning before the game. Kristy Sides made the comment that if they were flying commercial, for instance, they probably, they would have had to flown out in the morning or in the midday on Monday, would not have been able to practice, you know, in, in Indiana prior to leaving for Connecticut. They would have arrived after a long travel day in Connecticut, likely would have done some light practice in the evening, you know, squeezing in a window of court time in Connecticut on that Monday evening and then just kind of had to cram things in on shoot around on Tuesday and then into the game on Tuesday night, the regular season opener. She's not the only coach that has kind of voiced that, that, you know, you're able to, you know, within this season, especially with practice time being so limited, with shoot around windows being so limited because the schedule is condensed. That is one of the, like you talk about competitive, you know, equity and competitive balance. That's one of the competitive benefits that I think teams are going to see that because they're able to get out of games on time or that night, for instance, they can then practice the next morning if they so choose. That's exactly what Indiana did in between their, you know, home, their first game and their home opener. They flew out of Connecticut on a charter on Tuesday night, practiced in Indy on Wednesday and then played on Thursday. If they were flying commercial, you know, they might have done some light work on Wednesday afternoon, you know, just kind of after their flight, some rehab, some treatment and maybe some light practice. But it wouldn't have been as, you know, thorough as it was because they flew charter. So that is a subtle like you talk about competitive differences, especially in this year, I think will make a significant.
- [17:45]
Zena Kaeda
Impact especially at the close towards the end of the year, right as you get towards or particularly the middle of the year as you're trying to make a run towards the playoffs, you're talking about players getting tired, players needing the extra time after a practice for recovery, needing extra time with their trainers, needing that extra ice bath. And sometimes you obviously can't take the ice bath on the road with you. So very, very important to keep an eye out on how all of this plays out. You can see that the players are paying attention. They are actively tweeting out their thoughts and their concerns and their questions about this whole rollout. So something to keep an eye on for sure. Now let's circle back to the power rankings because apparently Sabrina's like, ah, travel's. Travel's not gonna be my big thing here. There are some other more glaring opportunities and ways to evaluate some of these teams. First week of WNBA action did not bore, that is for sure, particularly that opening night. We talked a little bit about that in our last episode. But going into the games over the course of the weekend, Sabrina, I don't know how you did it, girl, but you watched a lot of basketball. So going into your power rankings, tell us a little bit about what came out of your evaluation of the W. Yeah, just.
- [19:00]
Sabrina Merchant
Just one more thing on travel before I put that to bed. You know, like Ben noted, Indiana had the opportunity to fly charter for all of their games the first week. They didn't win any of those games. You know, and we've talked at length before about the New York Liberty getting fined for using a charter playing back in the 2021 season. For the second half of the season, they went 2 and 9 in those 11 games. I think it's great for WNBA's overall product that they have this program in place in terms of promoting safety and security and the recovery of their players after games. I think now that it's 11 a level playing field for everybody, like it's not going to make a difference in terms of overall team quality. And I think we saw that even in the first week of the season, a far more predictive factor of how teams are going to play wasn't how they were getting to games. It's just their experience level on the court. And the fact that these are the players they have, their overall talent level was far more important than how they were getting to these particular games. Like we saw with Connecticut and New York and Minnesota and all of these teams that brought back at least three starters from a year ago, they just look like they're a step ahead of everybody else at this point of the year. And I think that's to be expected, you know, especially in the first week when you've only had 11 days of training camp, basically two weeks to get to know one another, and potentially even less if you had to travel for road preseason games or other activities during that first part of training camp. You can definitely tell which teams look like they've played together before and which teams look like they're just sort of figuring out like, oh, that's where you like to pass the ball. And that divide, I imagine, will get a little less pronounced as the season goes along, but for now it is very, very obvious. Like, I'm thinking about those games between Minnesota and Seattle, and Seattle brings in Nako Gulmike and Skyler, Diggins, Smith, obviously great free agent acquisitions, and I anticipate them being one of the best teams in the league by August. But we're not in August yet, we're in May. And right now it looks like they don't really know what kind of offense they want to run. Like, is, you know, the hub of our offensive scheme going to be picking roles with Skyler, Diggins, Smith and Ezzy or Skyler, Diggins, Smith and Neca? And then what does Jewel do on those actions? And who is our fifth player in these situations? Like, is it going to be Victoria Vivance? Is it going to be somebody who maybe gets up threes at a higher volume? Like, they only shot nine three pointers in their opening night game against Minnesota? That is an astoundingly low total. Like, you think about Phoenix on the other end of the spectrum where Nate Tibbetts wants them to put up 40 a game. Now granted that's probably an unreasonable expectation in a 40 minute game, but you know, if you have a team that's putting up in the 30s versus one that's putting up nine, just like the math advantage is going to be impossible for Seattle to break through on certain occasions. So I just think you can see very clearly, like certain teams just trying to figure out how they want to play, what combinations work best with one another. Like, it's very hard to determine that during a preseason game when everybody has different goals out of those games. Right? Like, do you want to evaluate the back end of your roster, actually see how your starters work together? And I'm just interested to see how quickly those teams can make up ground like the Seattles, like Phoenix, who I actually think looked a little bit more cohesive than I expected at this point of the year. But Even like Chicago and Los Angeles and Washington, like all those teams that have a lot of new talent and there are a lot of younger pieces, how long does it take for them to figure out an identity even before they, like, actually start succeeding on the court?
- [22:07]
Zena Kaeda
And there's also such a small window for that new talent coming from the college game, right? People talk about the fact that they've only essentially had 30 days to translate their skills into the pro level, onto the pro level. On top of everything that you're talking about, Sabrina, of just translating teamwork, right, and being able to work with certain types of personnel on the floor, very, very, very apparent in particular teams. Now, I'm gonna call out one team on this power ranking that everybody's been watching, of course, and it's been very clear that they have a lot of work to do when it comes to personnel on the floor, understanding their offensive schemes, understanding their defensive rotations getting to play together, and that is the Indiana Fever. Really, really tough to watch some of these games. I'm just gonna be honest. It's been tough to watch because we're all at home kind of seeing, like, piss out of pick and roll, right? Like, make this offense simple, make it easy for yourselves. But it's not that easy. And it's not that simple to just immediately come into a situation where you've got a score and a shooter like a Caitlin Clark, you've got a big, like Aaliyah Boss, and you've got peripheral players like, you know, Carly Lou Samuelson and Erica Wheeler also trying to figure out how they fit into this mix with these stars in this offense. And it was just interesting to watch the first two games. You saw them get off to a hot start against the New York Liberty on Saturday and then again, kind of dissipated behind the big talent of the Liberty. What do you make of those teams, like Fever, like Mystics, like the Sparks in Life, Chicago? I would say those are the four that are probably very apparent that they need more time to play together. What do you make of how long it's going to take for them to gel? Because, again, the season is so condensed. How much patience, I guess, should we have for them? Because I'm wearing thin on mine for the Fever.
- [24:09]
Sabrina Merchant
Well, I think with Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, these are teams that, whether they'll admit it outwardly or not, like, are probably expected to end up in the lottery this season. So even if it takes some time for, you know, the Aaliyah Edwards, Shakira Austin pairing to work together, which unfortunately, Shakira Austin had to miss Sunday's game against Seattle, so we didn't even get a chance to see those two, you know, play together already at this point. What's it going to look like when Angel Reese finally gets to play next to Camila Cardoso? Well, she's out for, you know, four to six weeks because of that shoulder injury that she suffered during the preseason. And, you know, down the line, like, what big position should Cameron Brink be playing? Well, we don't really know because Azra Stevens is out basically until the Olympic break for Los Angeles. So a lot of questions that we just don't have the ability to get answered right now because of factors beyond those teams control. And I think that's okay because they have so many young players who are just trying to figure out their footing right now. And even if it doesn't necessarily result in wins right away, there's valuable learning, experiencing, happening regardless at that point. But you brought up Indiana, and obviously this is not a team that wanted to end up in the lottery again in 2025. This is a team that had has not made the playoffs since 2016. They had lottery picks each of the last three years that are still on the roster, and Alyssa Smith, Leah Boston, and Caitlin Clark now. And the expectation was, oh, they're supposed to be good now, right? Like, there's a lot of, can Indiana get home court in the first round of the playoffs? Like, how far could Indiana get in the playoffs? And I mean, let's be clear, like, Indiana just needs to win some games first. And the schedule hasn't done them any favors, you know, getting Connecticut twice, New York twice in their first four games. But I do think that, like, there's like, an element of overcomplication happening with the Indiana offense. Like when Caitlin Clark was drafted and when she was talking during the preseason, she said, I mean, I'm not an idiot. Like, my job is to get the ball to Aaliyah Boston as much as possible. Like, well, that's. That's going to make my life easier. And I know Ben calculated this for the story that he wrote about Caitlin's first week, but, like, she had four assists to Aaliyah Boston over the first three games. And you think about Caitlin Clark, who led the country in assists twice as a college player and was just famous for getting the ball to her bigs over and over again. Whether that was Monica Snano, whether that was Hannah stahlke or Addie O'Grady, for her to have four assists to one player, your best player over three games just doesn't seem like they're quite on the same page. So that's like where I'm a little confused is just, wouldn't that be the fulcrum of your offense is getting those two to play well together and yet they never seem involved in the same actions. Like Leah's not setting screens for Caitlin that often when Indiana goes on their runs, it's because they're playing super fast and kind of ignoring the fact that they have a big post and just running the floor as quickly as possible. I mean, I wish I had a better answer for you in terms of when we would expect to see that happen, but I think it's almost like, does Indiana disservice? They have so many mouths they need to feed in terms of this offense that I don't know that Kristi Sides is prioritizing things correctly. Like just get Caitlin and Aaliyah on the same page first and everything else will fall into place. Like their jobs will become easier if you're Katie Lou Samuelson, if you're Erica Wheeler or Lexi Hull or anybody else in this team. Once those two are commanding that defensive attention that they will, because look at the talent that the two of them have, I think it'll just make everything else easier for the surrounding pieces.
- [27:04]
Zena Kaeda
Not only on the same page, get them on the same side of the court. You know, I mean, half the time you're seeing Aaliyah be on the opposite block and there's not a down screen or a cross screen for her to come over to the side that Caitlyn's on. It's like, why are we doing this again? Like, what's happening? Or even having Aaliyah and Caitlin involved in some off ball action while Erica Wheeler's on the other side being able to see this. We're very curious, Indiana, we're very curious as to what's happening. Ben, you wrote about the first week of Caitlyn and evaluating her game more granularly. And I think that this is what people need, right, Because a lot of people are just watching her game superficially and they're just seeing like, this isn't working. This doesn't make sense. Like, what's happening. And I'd love to hear some of the insights that you saw or heard or you discovered while you did that research on her first week.
- [27:56]
Ben Pickman
Yeah, it was a busy first week. I saw the Indiana Fever play in three different states, the state of Connecticut, Indiana and New York on Saturday. So got a lot of fever in person to the point of Aaliyah Boston and Caitlin Clark first. And Sabrina threw out the, you know, the four assist stat and basically, like, just to add that and drive it home even further, one of those assists came on Indiana's very first offensive possession of the season. Right. Right off the top. And two of those assists came literally on consecutive possessions in their second game against New York. So again, like a really condensed space. So that is a lot of game time in which the two of them, you know, did not assist on a basket. It wasn't like four spread out even over three games. It was really like one, a quick two and then one other kind of random one. What I would say kind of big picture is a few things. Sabrina mentioned the schedule and how difficult it's been. One of the other things that, you know, is important context is Kelsey Mitchell clearly was limited through her first two games. She came off the bench in their first two games against Connecticut and New York. In Indiana, she moved back into the starting lineup. She had been dealing with an ankle injury on Saturday against Liberty and she definitely looked much better. The offense looked much better. It had, you know, played with more pace. It had more of a jolt. And Mitchell, who made an all star team last year, like, looked a lot more like herself going 7 of 18 from the field, had 17 points. So, you know, getting her back, like, I don't think it's a coincidence that the best Indiana has looked was on Saturday against New York when they could play Mitchell and Clark together. Because, you know, those are two really, really talented guards. I mean, Christie Sides said it after that game against New York on Saturday. Just like they're going to be a problem with the pace that they play at. And you can see that, like, they're going to push the ball, they're going to run and they are going to be a difficult team to stop because you have two really dynamic guards in the backcourt. I think big picture, like, Caitlin played obviously her best game yet against New York on Saturday. But Sheen recognizes, like, this is still a process. There is a lot to learn. You know, she talked about handling physicality better. She talked about being more decisive when navigating screens. She went up against two really difficult defenders in Dijonay Carrington and Benija Laney Hamilton. The other thing that should be said is like, teams are treating her already like they would a player at the top of a scout. Like, they are face guarding her. They are guarding her three feet out from the basket when she's in the play, when she's not in the play, like this is not kind of your average rookie integration, so to speak, where like they're focusing on other players, like players, coaches around the league. There is a clear respect for what Caitlin Clark can do and what her impact can be right off the jump like. And so she's being treated like, you know, an all star level player from the get go. And you know, Indiana is a really young team and working their way into that, I think they came away from Saturday's game a lot more confident, a lot more upbeat. They were not obviously happy with the 11 point loss against the New York Liberty, but you know, Christie Sides had talked a lot about just competing. What does it look like, what does it feel like, how do we do it? And she was proud and, and more optimistic about her team's effort overall. There was a stat though, and then I'll throw it back to you guys to hear your impressions from the encore standpoint that across the timeline kind of put out in a great tweet that I mentioned in my story that, you know, Caitlin Clark became the first player in WNBA history to log 21 turnovers in her first three games and just the second in WNBA history to log 50 plus points, 15 assists and 10 plus rebounds. And it just kind of speaks the duality of like what she is going through and what life is like as a professional that you can have so many mistakes. 21 turnover, she's double digit personal fouls as well. And yet like at times she looked really like really good and like scored in bunches. Like if I would have said after three games she's averaging 17 points, almost six assists and four rebounds, you'd be like, that's a pretty good stat. Line. Of course she can be more efficient. She can cut down on turnovers and fouling. But like it isn't like this has been a player who has been completely held under wraps or completely struggled. Like all of these things, both of these things, everything can kind of be true at once. And the Indiana Fever, as Sabrina mentioned, they're very much learning too. Just as a young team. They're not going to be the Iowa Hawkeyes and you know, beat almost everyone they play. That's pretty clear because the WNBA is just that much of a jump in competition.
- [32:12]
Zena Kaeda
I appreciate this breakdown and I appreciate this context and for all of you listening, you know, I just want to make sure and make it very clear we are not going to be a Caitlin Clark podcast. We are not going to always be only talking about her, only be talking about this game. We haven't had an opportunity to properly address her start since our last show. And so I definitely wanted to talk about this. But the biggest thing that and the biggest takeaway, and I'm grateful to Ben saying this, is that Caitlin Clark as a rookie has been treated like the top of the scouting report and meaning she is the most impactful, she's the most dangerous, she is the most paid attention to player on the floor. So it is very natural for her to have had a rough start when it comes to these quote unquote, 21 turnovers over three games. What Candace Parker did when she came into the league in 2008, her rookie debut, 34 points, 12 rebounds, eight assists. It wasn't normal. It wasn't normal, folks. What she did was unreal. That is why she was rookie of the year and MVP like that. That's just, that's, that's what she does. That, that was a very unique thing for what Candace did. Expecting that out of Caitlin Clark denies the greatness and the size and the, the level of what you see in the W right now. So I just wanted to put that out for the record that we had to address this. But moving forward, we're going to be talking about all of our rookies. Okay. And we're going to be talking about everybody in the W because there's a lot of talent to go around and there's a lot to talk about. But for those that were confused as to why the hell is Caitlin not being Caitlin from Iowa, it's because the W's being the W. That is why. And go read, go read Ben Pickman's article on his, on Caitlin's first week to understand what's going on. And also go read Sabrina power rankings. Not only does she break down the teams that are doing really well, she breaks down another rookie who's playing unbelievably well to start and that's Cameron Brink and her defensive prowess. Seven blocks in just two games, which is insane. It's got some work to do on the offensive side, but you know, Sabrina breaks it down in the, the power rankings. Don't you worry. All right. I'm very grateful for that because you do need the context. When you're evaluating these teams, you're evaluating the space. Now I want to keep it moving because there was something else off the court that happened this week that again started similar to Charters, was a great thing, but also similar to Charters, had a rocky landing and that was the Las Vegas Aces recent sponsorship by the city of Las Vegas. If you haven't seen this amazing news. Basically the city of Las Vegas was like, let me put some money in our girls pockets, okay? Maybe they were trying to spur the economy. Maybe they were just trying to support some WNBA athletes, maybe they're trying to do a little bit of both. But they decided to sponsor each player on the Las Vegas Aces by giving them a hundred thousand dollar sponsorship. Okay. That opened up a WNBA investigation. That's about the most I know. Sabrina, break it down for me. What happened with this sponsorship?
- [35:50]
Sabrina Merchant
Yeah, so just real quick clarification. Not the city of Las Vegas, it's actually the Las Vegas Connect Convention and Visitors Authority, which is equivalent to their tourism board which has in the past sponsored professional athletes to do promotions for the city of Las Vegas. Whether it's people who are coming in for fights or you know, individual games or one off events like Formula One or something that happened to occur in the city of Las Vegas, it's just in their best interest to use their celebrity to advertise the city as a whole. And the money that they were using to sponsor the Aces directly comes from attacks on hotel rooms. So it's legitimately coming from tourism revenue that is generated by people wanting to come see the Aces or the Raiders or whatever happens to be occurring in Las Vegas at any particular moment. So it makes sense for them to use that particular revenue stream to in effect create more dollars towards tourism. Because if you want the Aces play well, I guess paying them more money seems like a pretty good opportunity. Where this comes into conflict with wnba, CBA is a little bit trickier because there was an investigation into the Las Vegas Aces last season about potentially their front office providing pay for play opportunities for their players like arranging sponsorships and endorsements and side deals for the players to supplement the value of their contracts. And you look at the Las Vegas Aces salary cap and you know Asia Wilson is the 20th highest paid player in the league. Now Asia Wilson is Definitely not the 20th best player in the WNBA. She's not even the 4th best player in the WNBA. As she would like to point out over and over again, she is the best player in the WNBA. And the fact that she is making the 20th most and Kelsey Plum is making the same amount of money and Jackie Young is making almost $80,000 less than Arika Gumbawale and Kalia Kopra who are among the highest paid players in the league. It's been a source of constant frustration for other general managers around the league that the Aces keep getting their players to sign for below market value and sometimes Substantially below market value. So the key is here is, are they getting impermissible benefits like illegal pay on the side that makes it easier for them to want to stay in Las Vegas. And the investigation last year did not turn up anything with regards to pay for play. It did reveal that Dierka Hamby was given impermissible benefits when she was negotiating an extension with the Aces a year ago, which is why the Aces were docked their 2025 first round draft pick. Like, they will not have one in this upcoming draft. But that was the extent of it. So fast forward to this year and the Aces are proudly publicizing the fact that, hey, the tourism board is giving our players each $100,000 in addition to their salaries. It raises some alarm bells because, hey, this is a team that has been in the eye of the WNBA before for potentially doing things the wrong way. And now they're broadcasting like, hey, more money is coming into these players paychecks. So the key here is one, teams cannot negotiate deals for their players on their behalf. So what the tourism board specifically emphasized here was we contacted the players agents and negotiated this as any other sponsorship. Just like Nike would or just like Gatorade would like. You go through their agent, you make an endorsement deal, that's totally fine. The thing is, I'm just going to read a little segment of the WNBA CBA here. It says there's like a circumvention section in the salary cap where, like, you can't add additional money to a player's salary for basketball reasons. So it shall constitute a violation for a team to enter into an agreement with a sponsor, business partner, or third party under which such sponsor, business partner or third party pays or agrees to pay compensation for basketball services. So if the tourism board is just saying, like, hey, we're just going to pay you to keep being awesome as the Las Vegas Aces, three Pete would be icing on the cake. That's kind of a problem because they're not necessarily getting anything beyond the basketball services that the Aces are providing. But you know, the video that the tourism board posted goes on to say, like, and you know, maybe we'll find some mutually agreeable public appearances for you guys to participate in. You know, like, get you some Las Vegas gear to go out and walk around the town. Then all of a sudden it becomes for non basketball services. And maybe that's not in violation of the cpa, right? So there's just a lot of gray area here. I just think it's interesting that like, the Aces were so proud of this investment into their team. And obviously players across the league have sponsorships and endorsement deals with a variety of companies. So on that hand it doesn't seem like that deal. But on the other hand, this is a team that has had some difficulty skirting the lines of WNBA collective bargaining agreement and already is so successful. So they're naturally going to engender some sort of reaction from the rest of the league.
- [40:27]
Zena Kaeda
And I'm curious where the reaction was more so from players or GMs or the WNBA itself. We'll never know of course, but it is interesting that this has become an issue. Having worked in the partnership side, on the team side and of the deals I've known over the course of the teams I've been with or teams I know others have worked for, there have been way less, quote services provided for way more money. Okay, I've seen literally owners of teams sponsor their own teams to be able to, you know, let's say, okay, I have a seat that's courtside and I get one little sign somewhere in the arena and I'm going to give a million dollars. And it's very, very interesting to see the problem or the dissonance happen. And really the issue happened when it comes to players getting this money directly, when I've seen a bunch of examples of teams getting this money directly. So I'm very curious as to how ERA is all going to fall out and you know, hopefully these players get this money. But has anything like this ever happened before in the W?
- [41:46]
Ben Pickman
I mean, I think the other example that comes to mind again about the Las Vegas Aces is like last year as well, in June they tried to basically enhance their travel experience using something called jsx, which was a public charter operator that was league approved that would basically it flew out of cities like Atlanta, Dallas, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Westchester County, New York. And basically what the Aces tried to do was create like a pop up route, a separate route different than the initial, the routes that JSX flies for. And basically the league had told the Aces to cancel one of its June flight routes from Indianapolis to Connecticut and then later sent a memo to every team in the league about not wanting to create one off flights. Basically it goes to this idea of like kind of why can't we have nice things? Like I think that kind of sums it up. And that's kind of what Asia Wilson said post game in her comments when she was asked about it. You know, she kind of said, and I quote, like, but we're talking about growing the game. We're talking about taking that next step. It can't always be investigate, investigate, investigate, like they're trying, she said, to continue. Like they're trying to move the needle, they're trying to make things better across the league. And so I think they really felt like, you know, the fact that this is being investigated is just an example of like taking two steps forward, but also then having to peek behind the curtain and say, are we really allowed to take those two steps forward? And by doing so you might actually be taking a step or two back. Right. I think the, the LV CVA made a clear point when they were announcing the partnership with the asus that normally someone like Asia or Kelsey Plum or, or Jackie Young, they're getting this sponsorship deal, right? If it was just to those three players, no one would bat an eye, right? No one would care, no one would look, you know, no one would think it's any different than any other deal that they had. But the fact that it's players on the bottom of their roster who are also benefiting, that's where, you know, I think the news here was right. The flags were raised that it was Everybody from Player 1 to, you know, Player 11 and 12, they were all benefiting. And that, I guess is the historic nature of this agreement. I mean, the Aces, you saw their reactions. You know, Chelsea Gray tweeting under investigation is crazy. Alicia Clark saying that, you know, can we investigate Kathy and her decisions on who is allowed to charter and who isn't. Like this was a team that was not happy to learn the news that this was under investigation. I would say at this point, as we tape this on Monday afternoon, there's a lot of questions. We still don't know about the nature of the investigation, what they're looking into. You know, have the Aces gotten paid? Have they not gotten paid? You know, Sabrina mentioned the kind of the CBA minutia, the CBA grayness to this whole situation. There's a lot here to be sorted out. But you know, even if they get their money in the end, I do still think it speaks to kind of the kind of where we're at on some WNBA topics league wide like, you know, when good things happen, it still is not often as clean of a positive announcement as some players think, as teams think, as the league would want. It's something that, you know, you saw with charter flights. As you talked about Xena and we talked about on this show earlier, we've talked about, you know, television as well. And this is something I wrote about in another story on the site this week, like, obviously there's more broadcast windows, there's more partners, there's more games on national tv, ratings are up. And yet in the preseason, as we talked about on the show too, like a fan is still having to stream a game, you know, on their phone in an arena and 500,000 people are tuning in that way. And again, like the NBA has issues like this too, right? Like Vic Schaefer, to use what a Vic Schaefer line, the head coach of Texas, you know, in the NCAA tournament when the three point line was shorter in Portland on one half of the gym than the other kind of said like, you know, one of the shames here is that like everyone is going to say, you know, like this is only, only in women's basketball or like this is classic women's basketball, the NBA, it should be noted, like there was a game late in the season that played what, like an extra 90 seconds in one quarter because of a clock issue.
- [46:10]
Zena Kaeda
Like, that's the NBA warriors game, Warriors, Lakers games.
- [46:14]
Ben Pickman
Well, so hopefully, Xena, you didn't have to work too much longer or stay in the arena.
- [46:18]
Zena Kaeda
I was working, but I was in the studio and we were all unbelievably dazed by the fact that this was happening. Yeah, it was very much an LA thing for the shot clock to be a diva, but go ahead.
- [46:30]
Ben Pickman
Right. And so like that's. I raised that example to say that like issues like that happen in the NBA and in other sports too. But it does definitely seem like time and time again, again it happens more in the W. And maybe that's part of it being an emerging league, a growing league, and just kind of more eyeballs, more attention on it. But this was another example of that trend in action. Even if the investigation deems that everything was legal and handled properly.
- [46:57]
Zena Kaeda
Well, I'll say the number one thing that I'm very happy about and what the the tourism board did for the city of Las Vegas in how they did this was that they announced it first. And the reason why I'm happy that they announced it first is because they're forcing the issue now everybody knows what they wanted to do and now they'll have to publicly the wnba, their hand is going to be forced if they are publicly having to say, yeah, we're taking this away, or yes, we're supporting this. It is very much a conversation around do you want the sport to advance? Do you want these women to have access and resources that these other athletes have? The tourism board very smart by putting the wnba, a little bit of a pickle there to figure out what they're going to do because it is a very publicly discussed topic right now.
- [47:48]
Ben Pickman
Zena, I think we, we learned a little bit about, I think, your personality and approach to life just there. The tourism board seems like they did their due diligence. But are you then an ask forgiveness, not permission kind of person? It seems like from.
- [47:59]
Zena Kaeda
From that sentiment, I'll say this. When I was younger, and this is like, literally since I was a kid, I was always go ask mom, go ask Mrs. I was always the kid that was like the spokesperson to go ask for things or to go whatever. And I will say that a lot of the time, I was also a person that would be like, let's just do it so they can see how great it is and then we can ask for forgiveness later. And it usually worked out. It usually worked out. I'm not saying to do that for everything. Kids, anyone listening always, you know, try to mind the rules. But this is a good thing. Money in the pockets of these WNBA players is a good thing, and hopefully it encourages other cities around the country to do the same or something similar for their players. So this is very much a situation which I, young Xena, old Xena, all the above would be like, yes, ask for forgiveness later. We'll see what happens with that. But definitely something to keep an eye out as well. Sabrina, Ben, thank you all for jumping in, joining and breaking down some games and giving us some context on what's going on in the women's basketball team right now. Everyone listening in, thank you and we appreciate you for tuning in today. Again, hit that subscribe button. Go read those power rankings. Go read what happened in Caitlin first week. Go read what's going on in general around the league. We got tons of content on the site. Leave us comments if you want us to talk about anything or cover anything or if you have any questions. Again, for Ben or Sabrina, I'm Zena Keita, thanking you for your ear and encouraging you to keep listening. Keep watching, too, keep learning and keep loving the game, because that's the only way we're gonna keep growing it. Until next time.
- [49:50]
Sabrina Merchant
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