Latest news with #WNBAFinals
NBC Sports
an hour ago
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Lynx lament schedule quirk that delayed Liberty rematch, with Finals loss last year well in the past
MINNEAPOLIS — The bitter and crushing end to last season for the Minnesota Lynx clearly hasn't sidetracked their progress, with a 22-5 record and a four-game lead atop the WNBA standings nearly two-thirds of the way through the schedule. Finally, the opponent that delivered that distress in the decisive Game 5 of the WNBA Finals arrives. The New York Liberty visit Target Center, and the Lynx have been wondering what took so long. 'It should've been the first game of the season. That would've made the most sense,' Lynx star Napheesa Collier said. 'But here we are. We can't control that. We're just getting ready to play.' With the league's new 44-game schedule this year, there's less time to rest. This will be the Liberty's fourth game in six days. But it's time to gear up, because the two teams will meet four times in an 18-day span: in New York on Aug. 10 and 19, and in Minnesota again on Aug. 16. 'I think common sense would say that these two teams probably should've played earlier in the season, but the Rubik's Cube that is our WNBA schedule I guess is not solvable,' Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. 'I'm not the person who does it — there are certainly other challenges — but I think it's a big miss for sure.' Better later than never. The first WNBA Finals that went the distance in five years was a contest for the ages that resulted in record attendance figures and TV ratings, the first championship for the Liberty, and hard feelings for the Lynx — particularly around a disputed foul call on Collier late in regulation that allowed Breanna Stewart to tie the game with two free throws and set the stage for the overtime win. Reeve bluntly said the title was stolen from her team by the officials. 'I definitely won't forget it. But I don't feel any resentment toward the Liberty team. It's not their fault. I feel like we really left that in the past. It's been so long at this point. It's a new season. We're a new team. They're a new team. So just trying to focus more on this year,' Collier said. So maybe put the revenge theme on the backburner. 'It doesn't really feel like retribution for last year,' Collier said. 'It just feels like we're about to play a really good team.' It's a team that's not quite right, though, in second place but just two games up on fifth-place Seattle. The Liberty have endured a plethora of injuries during this defense of their first WNBA championship, with center Jonquel Jones returning from a month-long absence to a sprained ankle. Stewart was ruled out for the second straight game, after hurting her lower leg early in a loss to Los Angeles. Stewart is on the current four-game road trip that started in defeat at Dallas, when the team held a nearly 40-minute meeting in the locker room afterward. The Liberty also have been missing Nyara Sabally, who was instrumental in the Game 5 win last year in the WNBA Finals, for the past two weeks for what the team has deemed rest. The Lynx are coming off their first regular-season home defeat this year — not counting the Commissioner's Cup loss to Indiana — after dropping a 90-86 decision to Atlanta that's sure to have them roaring back under the demanding Reeve. The Liberty might not yet be a true rival, but the latest move toward reaching that status came when Emma Meesseman, the 2019 WNBA Finals MVP who last played in the league in 2022 and has been named EuroBasket MVP twice in the past three years, agreed to come to New York once her visa from Belgium is secured. She also considered Minnesota and Phoenix. Asked after practice about Meesseman's decision, Reeve offered a slight shrug and a smirk: 'She made the wrong choice.'
Chicago Tribune
5 hours ago
- Sport
- Chicago Tribune
Could the Chicago Sky hand the No. 1 draft pick to the No. 1 team in the WNBA?
The Chicago Sky are entering a dire turning point of the season. With a 7-19 record, the Sky are the second-worst team in the WNBA. Starting guard Ariel Atkins is sidelined indefinitely. Star Angel Reese is battling through minor injuries. With fewer than 20 games left in the regular season, the playoffs are a far-off dream. This isn't what the Sky envisioned for their first season under head coach Tyler Marsh. But in any other year, all of this failure and frustration would come with a shiny silver lining: improved odds at another lottery pick in 2026, a draft class studded with top talent including Azzi Fudd and Olivia Miles. But that's not the case this year for the Sky, who don't own their natural first-round pick in 2026. Instead, Chicago will spend the latter half of the season fending off a worst-case scenario — handing the No. 1 pick to the best team in the league. In 2024, the Sky struck a deal with the Minnesota Lynx to acquire the No. 7 overall pick in the 2024 draft in exchange for the No. 8 pick in 2024, a second-round pick in 2025 and a first-round pick swap in 2026. The Sky then added a final bow to this trade in a 2025 trade to acquire the No. 11 pick in the draft, ceding the rights to the 2026 pick swap to give Minnesota outright ownership of Chicago's first-rounder. Those two deals were monumental for the Sky, paving the way for the acquisition of Angel Reese (No. 7 in 2024) and Hailey Van Lith (No. 11 in 2025) as building blocks for a team developing around youth. But they also handed an unexpected boon to Minnesota, a 22-win team already dead set on steamrolling the rest of the league on their road back to the WNBA Finals. At best, the Sky are currently set to hand the Lynx a lottery pick to bolster a roster already headlined by stars like Napheesa Collier and Courtney Williams. And if they can't slow a slippery descent of losses amid a rash of injuries, the Sky could be on track to give the No. 1 pick to the league's heaviest hitter. The lottery system in the WNBA draft is complicated by a two-season weighting, which differs from most other draft lotteries in leagues like the NBA. The five lottery slots are determined by the teams that finish outside of the playoffs. From there, however, lottery odds are based on a team's record over the past two seasons. The non-playoff team with the worst two-season record will have a 40% chance of receiving the No. 1 pick. The remainder of the lottery is weighted by this two-season record, with exponentially decreasing odds — 25% for the team with the second-worst record, 17% for third-worst, 11% for fourth-worst and 7% for fifth-worst. This approach to odds drastically changes the outcome of lottery seeding in the WNBA. For instance, despite a dismal four-win showing this season, Connecticut's lottery odds are artificially deflated by their 28-12 record in the 2024 season, when they finished third overall in the league. Their two-season win percentage is still 49.2%, which traps them in the lowest odds despite being the bottom-ranked team in the league this year. Five teams are jockeying in the bottom rung of the league — the Sun, the Sky, the Golden State Valkyries (12-13, 48% two-year percentage), the Los Angeles Sparks (11-15, 28.8% two-year percentage) and the Dallas Wings (8-19, 25.4% two-year percentage). Three of these picks are owed to other teams — Connecticut to Chicago, Chicago to Minnesota and Los Angeles to Seattle. While the Sky are only one loss behind the Sparks in two-year win percentage, they remain 14 losses behind the Wings, who are favorites to finish with the top odds at the No. 1 pick. Barring a truly disastrous end of the season — which would involve the Wings going on a breakneck winning streak — the Sky are unlikely to finish above second in the draft lottery odds. This is still, however, somewhat disastrous. If the Sky hand the Lynx a top-three pick, they will be allowing the best team in the league a choice between Fudd, Miles or Lauren Betts. A top-five pick still isn't much better. And there's little the Sky can do to prevent either outcome from occurring. The best-case scenario for the Sky? Make the playoffs. That's been true all year. Conveying a first-rounder to Minnesota immediately negated the concept of tanking away this season. And the only way for the Sky to block the Lynx from potentially landing the No. 1 pick is to knock them out of the lottery altogether. If the Sky somehow make the playoffs, they would drop their draft pick down to No. 8 overall due to the presence of expansion teams in Toronto and Portland, which will receive the No. 6 and No. 7 picks. The likelihood of that outcome, however, is slim at best. The Sky are six games back from the Washington Mystics, who are currently eighth overall with a 13-13 record. They've won only four of their last 10 games, the second-worst streak in the entire league. If Atkins returns, a turnaround could still be on the table. But for now, the Sky are charting a course toward a disastrous result for the entire league — handing the Lynx even more ammunition to load up for yet another WNBA title conquest.
New York Post
13 hours ago
- Sport
- New York Post
WNBA Finals rematch finally here for Liberty, but Lynx see ‘big miss' in long wait
MINNEAPOLIS — It's been 282 days since the Liberty beat the Lynx in Game 5 of the WNBA Finals to clinch the franchise's first title. A little more than 40 weeks have passed since Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve blasted the officials and said the title was 'stolen' from them, and commissioner Cathy Engelbert wore her infamous New York skyline dress. Advertisement This WNBA season has passed the midway point, and the Liberty have had their glitzy championship rings for close to 2 ½ months. And yet, a 2024 WNBA Finals rematch has yet to take place. That'll change Wednesday, when the Liberty return to Target Center to face the Lynx for the first time this season. Advertisement But the drama from last year's thrilling and, at times, controversial series has seemingly dissipated. 'It doesn't feel like a Finals rematch anymore honestly,' Lynx star Napheesa Collier said. 'It's a new year for us. And it's been so long, it's almost August, so it's just the two top teams going against each other. We prepare for them, like they're a really great team, which they are. So it doesn't really feel like retribution for last year. It just feels like we're about to play a really good team.' Collier and Reeve questioned the WNBA schedule makers for putting off this match up until so late into the season. Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve said the Lynx and Liberty not playing until now is a 'big miss' for the league and fans. Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images Advertisement Collier suggested the Lynx should've played the Liberty in the first game of the season, which would've given Minnesota a chance to play spoiler to New York's ring ceremony. Reeve said the Lynx and Liberty not playing until now is a 'big miss' for the league and fans. 'I think common sense would say that those two teams probably should have played earlier in the season,' Reeve said. Napheesa Collier said the Lynx should have played the Liberty in the opening game of the season and not this late in the year. NBAE via Getty Images Advertisement Nonetheless, the time has come for the top two teams in the league to square off, and both teams are looking to bounce back from frustrating losses. The Lynx (22-5) suffered their first home loss of the season to the Dream on Sunday, and the Liberty (17-8) got embarrassed by the Wings a night later. But this game has the makings to bring out the best in both teams. Covering the Liberty like never before Sign up for Madeline Kenney's Inside the Liberty, a weekly Sports+ newsletter. Thank you Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Enjoy this Post Sports+ exclusive newsletter! Check out more newsletters 'That's what you expect,' Reeve said. 'Obviously we have high aspirations. They do, we do — playing each other, right? We'll bring it out of one another, and so should be the intense battle that we all anticipate.'
Hamilton Spectator
17 hours ago
- Sport
- Hamilton Spectator
Lynx lament schedule quirk that delayed Liberty rematch, with Finals loss last year well in the past
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The bitter and crushing end to last season for the Minnesota Lynx clearly hasn't sidetracked their progress, with a 22-5 record and a four-game lead atop the WNBA standings nearly two-thirds of the way through the schedule. Finally, the opponent that delivered that distress in the decisive Game 5 of the WNBA Finals arrives. The New York Liberty visit Target Center on Wednesday night, and the Lynx have been wondering what took so long. 'It should've been the first game of the season. That would've made the most sense,' Lynx star Napheesa Collier said. 'But here we are. We can't control that. We're just getting ready to play.' With the league's new 44-game schedule this year, there's less time to rest. This will be the Liberty's fourth game in six days. But it's time to gear up, because the two teams will meet four times in an 18-day span: in New York on Aug. 10 and 19, and in Minnesota again on Aug. 16. 'I think common sense would say that these two teams probably should've played earlier in the season, but the Rubik's Cube that is our WNBA schedule I guess is not solvable,' Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. 'I'm not the person who does it — there are certainly other challenges — but I think it's a big miss for sure.' Better later than never. The first WNBA Finals that went the distance in five years was a contest for the ages that resulted in record attendance figures and TV ratings, the first championship for the Liberty, and hard feelings for the Lynx — particularly around a disputed foul call on Collier late in regulation that allowed Breanna Stewart to tie the game with two free throws and set the stage for the overtime win. Reeve bluntly said the title was stolen from her team by the officials. 'I definitely won't forget it. But I don't feel any resentment toward the Liberty team. It's not their fault. I feel like we really left that in the past. It's been so long at this point. It's a new season. We're a new team. They're a new team. So just trying to focus more on this year,' Collier said. So maybe put the revenge theme on the backburner. 'It doesn't really feel like retribution for last year,' Collier said. 'It just feels like we're about to play a really good team.' It's a team that's not quite right, though, in second place but just two games up on fifth-place Seattle. The Liberty have endured a plethora of injuries during this defense of their first WNBA championship , with center Jonquel Jones returning last week from a month-long absence to a sprained ankle. Stewart was ruled out for the second straight game, after hurting her lower leg early in a loss to Los Angeles on Saturday. Stewart is on the current four-game road trip that started in defeat at Dallas on Monday, when the team held a nearly 40-minute meeting in the locker room afterward. The Liberty have also been missing Nyara Sabally, who was instrumental in the Game 5 win last year in the WNBA Finals, for the past two weeks for what the team has deemed rest. The Lynx are coming off their first regular-season home defeat this year — not counting the Commissioner's Cup loss to Indiana — after dropping a 90-86 decision to Atlanta on Sunday that's sure to have them roaring back under the demanding Reeve. The Liberty might not yet be a true rival, but the latest move toward reaching that status came earlier this month when Emma Meesseman, the 2019 WNBA Finals MVP who last played in the league in 2022 and has been named EuroBasket MVP twice in the past three years, agreed to come to New York once her visa from Belgium is secured. She also considered Minnesota and Phoenix. Asked after practice on Tuesday about Meesseman's decision, Reeve offered a slight shrug and a smirk: 'She made the wrong choice.' ___ AP WNBA:
Indianapolis Star
17 hours ago
- Sport
- Indianapolis Star
After early-season breakup, DeWanna Bonner returns to Indiana with Mercury: 'I'm glad that she's found her spot'
INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Fever will play the Phoenix Mercury for the first time in the 2025 season Wednesday, marking a reunion for many players and coaches. First, it will be Fever guard Sophie Cunningham's first game against the team where she spent her first six seasons in the league. Cunningham was drafted to Phoenix in 2019 and played with some of the league's greats, including Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner, and played in the WNBA Finals in 2021. Phoenix traded Cunningham to Indiana as part of a four-team trade, in which Indiana sent NaLyssa Smith to Dallas and the No. 8 pick in the 2025 WNBA draft to Connecticut. 'I have nothing but good things to say about Phoenix,' Cunningham said. 'It was my home for six years. I created a lot of fond memories and relationships and close, close friendships out there. And so it's gonna be really nice to see some of those people. But for me, I'm just all-in. I'm happy to be here in Indiana.' It will also be coach Stephanie White's first time coaching against Alyssa Thomas after two seasons in Connecticut together. And it will be DeWanna Bonner's return to Indianapolis after what became a failed signing between her and the Fever. Bonner was a marquee offseason signing for the Fever, choosing to follow White, who coached her for two years in Connecticut, to Indianapolis over returning to Phoenix, the place where she was drafted and won two championships. The most-tenured player in the league, Bonner was expected to be the veteran voice the Fever needed around its young core of Aliyah Boston, Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell. But it didn't work out as planned. Bonner began the season in the starting lineup, but felt she didn't fit well with the style of Indiana's play. She started three games, then moved to come off the bench in place of Lexie Hull. Bonner had career-lows during her nine games in Indiana — averaging 7.1 points and 3.8 rebounds — in nine games. She then requested a trade as she was away from the team for five games for personal reasons, but Indiana could not find a suitable trade option and ended up waiving Bonner on June 25. 'It wasn't a decision any of us made lightly,' Fever GM Amber Cox said in June. 'So it was a lot of conversations, and again, as we got into that process, we knew when we were exploring a trade that (Bonner on the Fever) was not something that was going to last the duration of the season.' And Bonner found a spot again back in Phoenix. The Mercury announced they signed Bonner on July 7, reuniting her with Thomas, her fiancee and someone she played with in Connecticut for five years, and the organization where she spent the first 10 years of her career. 'It's home. I know I'm going to get the love and the support," Bonner said July 7 via the Arizona Republic. "I know a lot of ladies on the team, but I'm just excited to be back home and the familiarity around this city. I just got here (July 7) and everything is sinking in, but I just wanted to be back home, and it was time.' Bonner is coming off the bench in Phoenix with small spurts in the starting lineup depending on injuries. So far, she is averaging 11.0 points and 5.0 rebounds over six games. For White, it's going to be a new experience to prepare against both Thomas and Bonner. And even though Bonner didn't work out in Indiana, White is content to see her in a place she's happy. 'I think she fits in perfectly with Phoenix,' White said. 'Her and AT play so well together, and she does a really good job of adding a different dimension with her ability to be that stretch four... she's comfortable in that system. "It's going to be different to game-plan against her, her and AT both really honestly, after having been on the sideline with them for a couple of years, it's going to be different to game-plan against her. But I'm glad that she's happy, and I'm glad that she's found her spot.'
