WNBA: The 2024 Regular Season and Playoffs

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The WNBA regular season starts today, May 14. I started a similar thread in 2023 and I didn't do a great job of updating it over the summer, as I focused instead on the NBA Summer League and foreign trips taken by various men's and women's college basketball teams. No promises, but I'll try to do better this year.

This pro league is in some ways the most unforgiving, because there are 12 teams and 12 roster spots, which creates a significant barrier to the many collegiate and international women trying to make it as rookies. It seems like it would be easier to increase the roster size than the number of teams, but no one asked me, so...


Meet the Golden State Valkyries; the team name was announced today. I would have asked actress Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie in the Marvel movies) to do the narration for this intro, but I guess that singer Kehlani, a native of the Bay Area, makes sense too. The team begins play next year. Following suit is a Toronto franchise that will become the 14th team in 2026.

The WNBA rosters were finalized Monday, and Duke can claim three pros. Descriptions are from GoDuke's earlier article about training camp. (Elizabeth Balogun was invited to the Atlanta Dream for camp, but was waived May 4.)

Chelsea Gray, Las Vegas Aces

Gray recently wrapped up her 10th WNBA season overall and fourth with the Las Vegas Aces in 2023, helping the team post a 34-6 overall record – the most regular season wins in WNBA history – and lock up the No. 1 overall seed en route to capturing their second straight WNBA title. Gray earned her fifth WNBA All-Star selection during the year averaging 15.3 points, 7.3 assists and 4.0 rebounds per game – her assist average checking in at No. 3 in the WNBA.

Elizabeth Williams, Chicago Sky

Entering her ninth season in the league, Williams looks to help the Sky pick up right where they left off after closing the 2023 campaign with an 18-22 record that included wins in six of their final eight games to secure the eighth and final playoff spot. In her eighth season in the league, Williams played in all 40 contests and averaged 9.8 points on 51.4 percent shooting, a team-best 1.5 blocks and 5.8 rebounds per game.

Lexie Brown, Los Angeles Sparks

Heading into her seventh WNBA season and third as a member of the Sparks, Brown is coming off a 2023 season that saw her start 11 of the 12 games she played in. The Suwanee, Ga., product was putting up splits of 12.4 points, 2.4 assists and 2.1 boards in 30.3 minutes while shooting 49 percent from the field and knocking down her threes at a 42-percent clip, before having to take two separate pauses due to a non-COVID illness and miss the final 26 games of the year. Brown and the Sparks agreed on a two-year contract extension in February.

There are also two former Blue Devils in the league who Duke can't officially claim: Celeste Taylor, drafted by the Indiana Fever in the 2nd round, and Azura Stevens, on the Sparks roster and entering her 7th season as a pro. (According to AP News, Taylor is one of four 2nd round rookies to make a roster. The others are Nika Muhl in Seattle, and Dyaisha Fair and Kate Martin in Las Vegas.)

Gray (lower left leg) and Stevens (left arm) will not play in their teams' season openers. ESPN's injury report says Gray is expected back May 18, while Stevens' return is estimated for June 22.

I'll write something up later about the non-players in the league with Duke connections. Here are the opening night games and links:

Liberty-Mystics, 7pm ET, ESPN3
Fever-Sun, 7:30pm ET, ESPN2/ESPN+/Disney+

Lynx-Storm, 10pm ET, ESPN3
Mercury-Aces, 10pm ET, ESPN2/ESPN+/Disney+

ESPN's scoreboard pages are pretty good with showing what future games are televised, and not just on their networks. There's a Thursday game (Liberty-Fever) on Amazon Prime and a pair of Friday games (Mystics-Sun and Storm-Lynx) on cable channel ION.
 
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The consensus of what I’ve been reading today is that Vegas is considered a strong favorite to three-peat, which hasn’t been done since Houston in the first three years of the league’s existence.

Is the WNBA going on hiatus during the Olympics?
 
Lexie Brown and her LA Sparks teammates (Dearica Hamby and rookies Cameron Brink and Rickea Jackson) recently appeared on TV's "The Jennifer Hudson Show". Video:


The Sparks are 2-5 so far, with Hamby averaging 20 points and Brown and the rookies each averaging about 10.

Over in Chicago, Elizabeth Williams gets about 12 points and 8 rebounds per game, and the Sky are 3-3. Las Vegas, the 2-time defending champs, are 4-1, but Chelsea Gray has not made her season debut yet.

Is the WNBA going on hiatus during the Olympics?

Yes.

According to the WNBA schedule, the All-Star Game is July 20, and the next regular season game is August 15. (The Olympics are scheduled for July 26-August 11.)
 
WNBA 2024 discussion

Someone help me understand...

Right now Caitlin Clark is bringing more attention, ratings, fans, and MONEY to the WNBA than anyone thought was possible in the next 5 years. She is undoubtedly going to force the entire league to alter its salary structure for everyone. So, why are opposing players out to get her? What was Chennedy Clark doing? And why did Chennedy's teammates jump up with excitement when she delivered an embarrassing cheap shot?

Perhaps most importantly, where were Caitlin Clark's teammates rushing to her defense? If that kind of cheap shot happened to a NBA superstar, there would be a price paid. In the WNBA, nothing. I don't get it.

https://x.com/itsAntWright/status/1796982098017845466
 
Yesterday was the first game I've caught this year, and it was a really good one. It was bad team one vs bad team two, but it was still great. Clark and Reese were fun to watch. Loved seeing that crowd, the game has come so far.
 
Someone help me understand...

Right now Caitlin Clark is bringing more attention, ratings, fans, and MONEY to the WNBA than anyone thought was possible in the next 5 years. She is undoubtedly going to force the entire league to alter its salary structure for everyone. So, why are opposing players out to get her? What was Chennedy Clark doing? And why did Chennedy's teammates jump up with excitement when she delivered an embarrassing cheap shot?

Perhaps most importantly, where were Caitlin Clark's teammates rushing to her defense? If that kind of cheap shot happened to a NBA superstar, there would be a price paid. In the WNBA, nothing. I don't get it.

https://x.com/itsAntWright/status/1796982098017845466

I suspect it's blowback on the attention the rookie has received. It's being discussed as racism and other unpleasant things, but to me it feels like "who are you and what have you done?"
 
I pointed out in the NBA Draft thread that DBR is one of the few college sports boards not to fall into the trap of dedicating a thread to Bronny James' pro prospects. Similarly, this board has also admirably managed to avoid a Caitlin Clark thread. We've discussed her, of course, but in a larger context of college hoops or March Madness commercials or the WNBA.

The problem is that sports news media has failed to show the same level of restraint, showering attention on Clark at the expense of every other player, whether rookie or veteran. And the league was somehow just not prepared for this. All they did was schedule a bunch of early high-profile games for the Indiana Fever, sometime after they got the #1 pick last December.

Clark may not be the entire meal ticket, but she is the face on the meal ticket, and the league is going to have to adjust quickly.
 
I pointed out in the NBA Draft thread that DBR is one of the few college sports boards not to fall into the trap of dedicating a thread to Bronny James' pro prospects. Similarly, this board has also admirably managed to avoid a Caitlin Clark thread. We've discussed her, of course, but in a larger context of college hoops or March Madness commercials or the WNBA.

The problem is that sports news media has failed to show the same level of restraint, showering attention on Clark at the expense of every other player, whether rookie or veteran. And the league was somehow just not prepared for this. All they did was schedule a bunch of early high-profile games for the Indiana Fever, sometime after they got the #1 pick last December.

Clark may not be the entire meal ticket, but she is the face on the meal ticket, and the league is going to have to adjust quickly.

Especially since the marketing in women's sports lies with the individual players, not with the teams. The teams just don't have enough history to have any geographical attachments. For these recent women's leagues it's all about the players, and if the fan favorite happens to play for the Indiana Fever, then that's the team you'll follow. If the player moves, a lot of the attention moves with her. It's tricky to market that as a league, and I don't think they've figured it out yet.
 
I would say that also the "viewing public" tuning in to the WNBA for the first time may be shocked to see that it's a contact sport.

Honestly I haven't seen anything all that egregious as yet.
 
Especially since the marketing in women's sports lies with the individual players, not with the teams. The teams just don't have enough history to have any geographical attachments. For these recent women's leagues it's all about the players, and if the fan favorite happens to play for the Indiana Fever, then that's the team you'll follow. If the player moves, a lot of the attention moves with her. It's tricky to market that as a league, and I don't think they've figured it out yet.

Thus phenomenon is like the early days of the NFL, when the league seemed to exist to provide showcases for the famous college players joining the NFL, which was much less popular than college football. That only began to change in the 1950s with success and popularity of the Browns, Giants, Packers and Lions, etc. Network TV made a huge difference, of course.
 
Someone help me understand...

Right now Caitlin Clark is bringing more attention, ratings, fans, and MONEY to the WNBA than anyone thought was possible in the next 5 years. She is undoubtedly going to force the entire league to alter its salary structure for everyone. So, why are opposing players out to get her? What was Chennedy Clark doing? And why did Chennedy's teammates jump up with excitement when she delivered an embarrassing cheap shot?

Perhaps most importantly, where were Caitlin Clark's teammates rushing to her defense? If that kind of cheap shot happened to a NBA superstar, there would be a price paid. In the WNBA, nothing. I don't get it.

https://x.com/itsAntWright/status/1796982098017845466

It's ugly, it's not justified, and it's precisely the wrong look for the league at a time when more people are tuning in.
 
It's ugly, it's not justified, and it's precisely the wrong look for the league at a time when more people are tuning in.
Yea, very ugly. If I were the commissioner of the WNBA, I would have given her a multi-game, no pay suspension (5 or 10 games, at least). Maybe I shouldn't say this, but I think Caitlin Clark has rapidly become the "JJ Redick" of women's basketball. Lots of jealousy and CC hate has reared its ugly head. Sort of stupid, IMHO, because the women's game NEEDS her to grow the fan base.
 
I would say that also the "viewing public" tuning in to the WNBA for the first time may be shocked to see that it's a contact sport.

Honestly I haven't seen anything all that egregious as yet.

You must not have seen the body check that Jason is referring to then. It was a completely pointless cheap shot in the back court with the ball still out of bounds after a made shot. Really can’t get any more egregious than that.
 
Someone help me understand...

Right now Caitlin Clark is bringing more attention, ratings, fans, and MONEY to the WNBA than anyone thought was possible in the next 5 years. She is undoubtedly going to force the entire league to alter its salary structure for everyone. So, why are opposing players out to get her? What was Chennedy Clark doing? And why did Chennedy's teammates jump up with excitement when she delivered an embarrassing cheap shot?

Perhaps most importantly, where were Caitlin Clark's teammates rushing to her defense? If that kind of cheap shot happened to a NBA superstar, there would be a price paid. In the WNBA, nothing. I don't get it.

https://x.com/itsAntWright/status/1796982098017845466

I'd consider myself the perfect example of why the league needs to do a better job of protecting Caitlin Clark. When you have YouTube TV you can set it to add all games from a particular team to your library. For example, I never have to worry about 'saving' a Duke basketball game, if it's on, it's automatically added to my library. Before this season, I never added a single WNBA game, much less a team to my library. I've had multiple NBA teams added (GSW, Pelicans). I've added the Indiana Fever and I've watched all the available games. I've also watched the game that was on Amazon Prime Video. And yes, I'd like to see Clark protected, at least as much as other players.

So...why protect and promote Clark? Because there are a lot of people like me that watched a little but not a lot of WNBA before this season and have started to follow the league and the Fever.

That cheap shot from Carter should have resulted in an ejection, it was in no way a basketball play (which is exactly what Caitlin, calmly stated afterwards). What was worse was Angel Reese smiling an congratulating Carter when she reached the sideline. What was good, however, was that the coach, Teresa Weatherspoon, was not amused and quickly called them both over. Here's her quote on it: https://x.com/Khristina/status/1797693701571174461?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet

Possibly the most beautiful thing is that the resulting FT was the difference in the game (Fever won by a single point).

As for Angel Reese, she and Carter have one thing in common. They are most famous not for their play but for being jerks to Clark. I hope their 15 minute are up.
 
I suspect it's blowback on the attention the rookie has received. It's being discussed as racism and other unpleasant things, but to me it feels like "who are you and what have you done?"

My reaction is, "What are you doing? You must be crazy! Caitlin is attracting all the eyeballs, which are paying the salaries."
 
My reaction is, "What are you doing? You must be crazy! Caitlin is attracting all the eyeballs, which are paying the salaries."

Yeah, I didn't even touch on the financial effect Clark is having on the league. If the interest in her, and the WNBA, continues it will have a great effect on the salaries for the players (which have been traditionally low).
 
Yea, very ugly. If I were the commissioner of the WNBA, I would have given her a multi-game, no pay suspension (5 or 10 games, at least). Maybe I shouldn't say this, but I think Caitlin Clark has rapidly become the "JJ Redick" of women's basketball. Lots of jealousy and CC hate has reared its ugly head. Sort of stupid, IMHO, because the women's game NEEDS her to grow the fan base.

Keep in mind that this isn't the NBA. A 10 game suspension is quarter of the season, and it's not like most of these players are multi-millionaires. That's a major hit to somebody's lifestyle for a first-time offense. A shot across the bow would be warranted, but you don't have to try to sink the boat quite yet.
 
Feels like Clark has a little Tiger Woods happening...not immediately appreciated by her fellow players despite driving their earning potential way up.
 
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