The Minnesota Lynx cannot protect all of their young players

After their run to the 2024 WNBA Finals, it is pretty clear that the Minnesota Lynx will have to protect their starting five. That group is the foundation for their possible return to the finals, as they chase their fifth championship.

That means they can only protect one more player in the expansion draft and will likely lose some of their young talent. Diamond Miller, Dorka Juhasz, and Alissa Pili are the only players on the Lynx’s roster under the age of 27. Miller and Pili were high draft picks—number two in 2023 and number eight in 2024—and Juhasz offers great size on a team lacking just that.

All three are interesting young players, but the Lynx can only protect one of them. That means the Lynx will have to make a tough decision, choosing which player to protect and which they will risk losing.

Should they protect Juhasz because they need depth at the center position, or should they protect Miller because she has the highest ceiling? Will they have minutes available for Pili to develop, or should they just let her go somewhere where she will have a better chance to play?

Either way, it will be a blow to potentially lose someone who was a high lottery pick and could have developed into a key player for the team in the future. If she is not protected, Pili is probably the most interesting of the three for an expansion franchise. She is young, showed promise in college, doesn’t have Miller’s injury history, and would benefit from being with a franchise that is not trying to win right away. 

Pili barely played in her rookie season, averaging only 6.3 minutes over 22 games during the regular season. If the Lynx want to compete for a championship again, her second season probably wouldn’t look much different in Minnesota. Playing time is the best way to develop, and the Valkyries would be able to offer her just that. 

https://highposthoops.com/upcoming-wnba-expansion-draft-will-deal-difficult-blow-minnesota-lynx

In a recent episode of her "A Touch More" podcast with her fiancée Megan Rapinoe, Bird pointed out the unexpected and rather surprising parallelism between herself and Clark early on in Bird's career in the WNBA.

"It happened to me," Bird started as she compared how both Clark and Angel Reese saw their coaches get fired after their espective rookie year -- just like Bird had experienced many years ago, via Women's Fastbreak. "In 2002, my rookie year, not that different from both Angel and Caitlin. A little more similar to Caitlin, because we made the playoffs.

"So we were a team that had young talent, a lot of expectations because of... back-to-back No. 1 picks [in the WNBA Draft]."

The same is the case for the Fever, who drafted Clark as the top pick in 2024 after selecting Aliyah Boston in the same spot one year prior.

"The season totally was up and down," Bird continued. "Made the playoffs, lost in the first round to the eventual champion... and a month, maybe less, later, I get a call saying our coach has resigned. What's interesting about that moment is that our head coach was Lin Dunn, who's now with the Indiana Fever."

https://www.essentiallysports.com/wnba-basketball-news-even-the-wnba-champion-complains-about-her-salary-jonquel-jones-declares-her-preference-for-foreign-contracts/

Well, let's see. You're the NBA and you create a start up, the WNBA in the late 90s, and even though you have the money to attract and create top tier talent to exceed the existing top market competitors (international women's professional basketball leagues), you choose not to do that, instead electing to pay the talent at your new start-up far less than what talent at those top market competitors are making. And then you wonder why it has taken nearly 30 years for your start-up, which is still losing money BTW, to finally have marketable talent that can gain a broad level of consumer interest. And still, your top tier talent is far underpaid compared with the main competition in the market, international women's professional leagues.

If the NBA would invest in the WNBA to make the salaries comparable to international women's professional leagues, you would see the WNBA grow by even larger leaps and bounds, with an even more significant increase in the interest of girls and young women athletes to play basketball, heightening the competition for the WNBA and its pipeline like never before. The upfront investment would be more than recouped on the back end.

The fact that these players have to go to countries like Russia to make several times their WNBA salary is disgraceful.

EDIT: This is a story from just last year: "Why the WNBA isn’t always top choice for international women’s basketball players" https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/4242629/2023/02/23/wnba-euroleague-alina-iagupova/ Imagine that there has been 30 years of this. And imagine how the last 30 years might have been different.

Now that it’s been announced that Steph White is returning to the Fever and Tyler Marsh is heading to Chicago, that leaves Connecticut, LA, Dallas, the Mystics, and Atlanta without a coach.

What are y’all’s predictions about who will fill those remaining seats?

I still think Kurt Miller will land somewhere. I think he could maybe end up in Atlanta, I also hope T-spoon gets another HC role which i could see her in Atlanta as well, but Kurt is probably a better fit. So maybe T-spoon to Dallas (she’s from texas so that could have some pull to it) or the mystics (hopefully they get a good gm). I also liked Coach Trammel so I hope she lands on her feet. I have no clue about what’s going to happen with Connecticut.

(Side note: I read recently that Briann January, assistant coach for the Sun, took on a coaching role with a G-League team so for that purpose I’d be surprised if she ends up as HC just because of the timing issue between seasons)

From Adam Silver's press conference in Mexico City right now, just confirmed that Steph and Sabrina will be doing another three point shootout at the Allstar Weekend in San Francisco. Said they want to do more NBA/WNBA competitions because the Steph vs. Sabrina shootout was one of the highlights of the weekend. Said there would probably be more rounds to potentially expand the competition.

We are going to try our something new. We still want you to post lots of WNBA content on the subreddit, but we also want you guys to be able to basically talk about anything you would like to talk about with other WNBA fans. We are doing a weekly thread, that may in fact turn into a daily thread if it gets a good response from you guys.

In this daily thread we can talk about just about anything. Less restrictions that the overall subreddit.

• Self promotion of their blogs, youtubes, IG's, tiktoks, podcasts, but no selling merchandise. We will consider allowing this eventually on certain days if this becomes a daily thread.

• Show off your fandom by posting pics of your merch or memoralbilia, cards, etc.

• Memes

• Photos

• Humor, jokes, funny topics, etc..

• Newbie questions

• Off-topic things that don't have anything to do with the WNBA

Also, we have added a Wiki to the sub, feel free to message the mods if you think anything should be added to it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/wnba/wiki/index/

I live an hour from Charlotte. It’s doubtful the Sting make a return to the W.

I understand in the inaugural season, unrivaled games will be played all in one arena (in Miami). Maybe a new city every year to expand fan interaction or just bring the show on the road?

What about bringing some preseason or even regular season games to neutral sites? Let more fans experience live games. I’m confident that if the W brought a game to a major city or college campus, they’d sell tickets and merch and maybe pick up a few local sponsors. What do you think?

Honestly just a free write thought

Have a couple games in the cities bidding for an expansion team.

They can use college arenas in the meantime just to see which areas have the most potential and interest

Excited for the growth of the W!

Pretty much what the title says. I'm hopping on the WNBA train after the hype from this season. Enjoyed the finals, and as a NYC sports fan, was happy about the result.

Obviously there are ESPN and The Athletic articles I can read, but are there any good podcasts or YouTube channels out there? Doesn't have to be Liberty specific, but if there are any, that'd be cool. Also, any good resources for league structure, roster rules, salary cap and all that? I read something somewhere on a former WNBA player (Meesseman) who now plays in Europe because of international duties which seems odd that the WNBA would affect her ability to do both.

Anyway, tyia for any and all info, and I'm excited for the upcoming season and coming down from Buffalo to go to my first WNBA game!

I’ve seen people hypothesize that it could be Syd Colson, obviously it’s not true but she does have similar mannerisms and a sense of humor. But I really wanna know who this is. I also think it would be cool if the Nets had a Mascot named Elliot and have a Mr. and Mrs. Met situation.

So what's the difference between how the NBA calls fouls and how the WNBA calls fouls. E.g. this was called a Flagrant 2 just now when Grant Williams accelerates into Jason Tatum.

Flagrant 2: Grant Williams ejected after running into Jason Tatum

However, earlier in the season we saw similar plays like Diamond DeShields running into CC (third foul in just 1 minute or so). But that was a Flagrant 1.

Flagrant 1: Diamond DeShields accelerates into Caitlin Clark

Curious why one constitutes a flagrant 2 while the other constitutes a flagrant 1. What are the correct calls?

New-ish fan here, so I will drop the obligatory "this might be a dumb question" disclaimer.

With all of the recent movement we have seen on the coaching front, it got me wondering how much a coach's style and/or strategy changes from team to team. And relatedly, whether former players have any advantage (and if so, is it a meaningful advantage or just marginal) when playing against a former coach's new team. I imagine that the players on a given team impacts at least the strategy to some extent, but I could be totally off on that.

Curious to hear thoughts on this.

Everyone is speculating on who will play Unrivaled, but with 36 WNBA players headed to the Unrivaled league, who will play Athletes Unlimited?

Right now it looks like they've announced 6 players: Syd Colson, Alyssa Pili, Jordan Horston, Lexie Brown, Isabelle Harrison and Dorie Harrison. According to their website, they have a 40 member roster size.

Disclaimer, I'm new to the concept of AU. I reviewed past rosters and it looks like it's typically bench players, though there are definitely some bigger names that have played in the past. How much will Unrivaled's existence hurt the AU model?

I'm a new WNBA fan and I've been watching old games and highlights and I was wondering if anyone has a game they'd recommend where there's a player who just plays really well. It doesn't just mean 'they scored a bunch of points,' like if there's a game where a player just showed great court vision and was able to control the pace of the game or something similar, that works too!

Thank you in advance!

Hi!

I’ve been a long time fan of the W and I’m just starting to watch the fiba women’s qualifiers and going to a game in Manchester next week.

Can someone explain the structure of the season? I’ve tried to find out online but I can’t find much about it.

With White being announced as the next Fever head coach that takes her off the board leaving 6 coaching vacancies. I’m curious if the announcements, or at least some of them, might come quickly now. I have some questions for the fanbases of the remaining 6 teams with openings:

• Who would your preferred candidate be?

• Are there any available coaches that you absolutely don’t want coaching your team?

I appreciate your thoughts.

https://reddit.com/link/1gh6tr6/video/z17duzg9wayd1/player

"Let’s stand up for what’s right in Minnesota and vote blue down-ballot! Click here https://www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/election-day-voting/ to learn more about how to register, when to vote, where to vote, and other important information regarding the state representatives in Minnesota"

Does anyone know why Aja Wilson isn’t be pursued for Unrivaled like Caitlin?

I know Aja said she would not be doing anything, but so did CC. I would think they would be pushing for the MVP to play. Is she just that against it?

Since the end of the 2024 WNBA season, seven franchises have parted ways with their coach. A clear signal is being sent: Coaching jobs in the WNBA come with the expectation of results.

With the exception of Nate Tibbetts (Phoenix Mercury), who is also the highest-paid coach in the WNBA, no team with a losing record still has a job headed into the expansion draft in December.

The trend follows the highest price tag for expansion in league history, an increased expectation for ownership groups to heavily invest in facilities, and also precedes a CBA opt-out where the WNBPA intends to focus on a "new economic model" and "players salaries," per their statement released on Oct. 21.

In short, the bar has been raised and nobody wants to be left behind. Finding the right coach to attract free agents and become a playoff contender is the price for playing. Coaches need to win, if not immediately on the court then in meetings with current and future players.

Coaching competence

Although what comes from the front office and ownership is integral to being a contender, it will not substitute for great coaching, all things considered. Take Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, who got her team back to the WNBA Finals and within minutes of a historic fifth franchise title despite being in what many considered a year removed from a rebuild. That said, great coaching is subjective. Reeve, who won WNBA Coach of the Year and Executive of the Year, was in the hot seat this summer when her superstar Olympic roster was taken to the brink by France in the Olympics.

What the see-saw perspective on Reeve tells us is being a great coach, especially with great players, is extremely hard. The WNBA has seen excellent coaching over its 28 years, sometimes despite itself. Brondello, for example, was let go by Phoenix after she led the franchise to its fifth WNBA Finals in 2021, falling short to the Chicago Sky. The Mercury then hired Vanessa Nygaard, a coach with no professional coaching experience. Before hiring Brondello, the Liberty suffered four losing seasons under first-time head coaches Katie Smith and Lynx assistant coach Walt Hopkins after Laimbeer moved on to Las Vegas. Derek Fisher, Tanisha Wright, and Teresa Weatherspoon are some of the most recent first-time coaches to get the axe.

That is not to say all first-time coaches fall short of expectations. Hammon won two WNBA titles in her first two seasons as the Aces' coach. She also spent several seasons working on the San Antonio Spurs' coaching staff under Gregg Popovich. In San Antonio, she experienced deep playoff runs and was empowered to serve as bench boss during the 2015 NBA Summer League. 

In other words, Hammon was given every opportunity to learn under a great coach, participate in a championship culture, and lead a team all before she signed her WNBA contract with Las Vegas in 2022. As the stakes become higher, will the WNBA invest in a coaching pipeline, especially for former players?

It's a question that has been asked, and while some accommodations have been made -- such as an additional assistant role for any team with at least one former WNBA player on their staff -- to build from within, the stakes for coaches is rising as fast as the league's already elite talent level.

Read More

https://www.cbssports.com/wnba/news/wnbas-coaching-exodus-proves-stakes-for-coaches-are-rising-as-fast-as-the-interest-money-flowing-into-league/