WNBA -- 2023 Season | Page 51 | The Boneyard

WNBA -- 2023 Season

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baggerbob said:
Quinn was the assistant, and Kloppenburg was the acting head coach during the championship year.
Don't know whether he was offered the job or not. But that was Quinn's first year as a coach, and that shouldn't have qualified her for the job.
They should have done a job search to find someone who had experience as a head coach.
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Not sure what happened. All I know is, Coach Quinn had the blessing & support of Coach Hughes. We will see what happens after this season. I look at my Minnesota Lynx and we all know that Coach Reeve has a ton of experience but without that high level of talent, no level of coaching experience will help get wins.
 
JellyBean said:
Not sure what happened. All I know is, Coach Quinn had the blessing & support of Coach Hughes. We will see what happens after this season. I look at my Minnesota Lynx and we all know that Coach Reeve has a ton of experience but without that high level of talent, no level of coaching experience will help get wins.
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Cheryl's coaching record is about .500 in games when Maya Moore is not playing. It's .735 when Maya was in the lineup. Minnesota was not an elite team until Maya arrived and other personnel got healthy.

Edited to revise the Maya years from .700 to .735.
 
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MilfordHusky said:
Cheryl's coaching record is about .500 in games when Maya Moore is not playing. It's close to .700 when Maya was in the lineup. Minnesota was not an elite team until Maya arrived and other personnel got healthy.
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That stat is wild. I wonder if there's any other current or future HOFer who's had such an impact on her team's win/loss ratio. Maybe Candice Parker and the Sparks?
 
TheFarmFan said:
That stat is wild. I wonder if there's any other current or future HOFer who's had such an impact on her team's win/loss ratio. Maybe Candice Parker and the Sparks?
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L.A. underachieved for years, so I doubt it.

Maya was the ultimate winner. Her 2018 final season stands out as an anomaly. With her in the lineup, they went:

27-7
27-7
26-8
25-9
22-12
28-6
27-7
18-16

Since Maya stepped away, they have gone:

18-16
14-8
22-10
14-22
10-13


The year before Maya arrived, they were 13-21.

If my math is correct, that's 200-72 for .735 with Maya and 91-90 for .503 without her.

Their 2 best years without Maya were 2020 and 2021, when they had Crystal Dangerfield, interestingly.
 
This is not to take away anything from Maya, but it should be noted her last season with MN (2018) was also the last season for Whalen and Brunson, and Seimone's last full season in the league (and last as a true scoring threat]. One of the best starting lineups ever put together [perhaps until...the Aces].
 
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Parker is (by far) the starter the Aces could most afford to lose, as Stokes is a tremendous defensive presence (and doesn't need to provide offense with everyone around her).

But that leaves Vegas only six deep (Alysha Clark is a stud coming off bench). If you can get Wilson in foul trouble...
 
MilfordHusky said:
Cheryl's coaching record is about .500 in games when Maya Moore is not playing. It's .735 when Maya was in the lineup. Minnesota was not an elite team until Maya arrived and other personnel got healthy.

Edited to revise the Maya years from .700 to .735.
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Maya helped greatly. I think having Maya on the floor, especially in our first title year, allowed players like Augustus, Brunson, and McWilliams-Franklin that freedom to just play basketball, especially a player like Augustus. Having Maya allowed Augustus and her game to shine even brighter, which made Coach Reeve look even better. Folks forget that Reeve was in her 2nd year when the Lynx won their first ttile.
 
Watched the 2nd half of the Aces game. The 3 just isn't there for Plum this year, but she can pretty much score whenever she wants when she drives.

Copper had a huge game, but it wasn't enough

Clark got clobbered below the eye and left the game. LV officially has NO bench at the moment.
 
Ionescu had a triple double today. Storm led most of the game but couldn't finish it off.
 
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How many teams have 2 players shooting 90% from the charity stripe? The Aces have such a duo.
 
The Sky actually got Wilson into a bit of foul trouble, and she sat most of the 3rd quarter. But they still couldn't stop them on defense. Young, Plum, Gray are just too good.

It's absurd that the Aces currently have FOUR starters all shooting at least 50% from the field.
 
Canada hit a game winning 3 with about 4 seconds left. I was thinking the Sparks might not win another game, but I was wrong. Canada had 20/10, Nneka scored 30.
 
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Indiana seems vastly improved from a season ago. They’ve played the Aces within single digits (4 and 8 points) in 2 of their 3 matchups so far. That’s better than most teams have faired. Boston is a lot better than I thought she’d be given the increased physicality and decrease in calls she gets in the W. I’m sure in a year or two she’ll be in the league MVP conversation. That said, Indiana HAS to close out those close games. Too many missed chances.
 
Kiah Stokes had a typical stat line: 6/17/2/1. 17 boards! Despite her offensive limitations and playing 31 minutes, she didn't hold the Aces back, as they scored 107, going over 50 in each half.
 
cancontent said:
How about a combination of both?
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This, Coach Sides seems to enable some bad habits of her players and her rotations are questionable. Using VV as the 4 primarily against taller teams like LA and NY is a recipe for failure.

As for the players, these vets aren't playing like vets, especially the backcourt. There is too much financial stock ($200k+) in both Wheeler and Mitchell for them to consistently make low percentage and/or bad plays every single game, especially in crunch time.

This doesn't seem like a winning roster. They need some more poise and consistency from the backcourt.
 
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GCKSFN4L said:
This, Coach Sides seems to enable some bad habits of her players and her rotations are questionable. Using VV as the 4 primarily against taller teams like LA and NY is a recipe for failure.

As for the players, these vets aren't playing like vets, especially the backcourt. There is too much financial stock ($200k+) in both Wheeler and Mitchell for them to consistently make low percentage and/or bad plays every single game, especially in crunch time.

This doesn't seem like a winning roster. They need some more poise and consistency from the backcourt.
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The roster isn't perfect but the team seems to be improving in some areas. While some may not see it, the season has been successful so far and there's many more games to go. How Indiana builds upon this for next season is what fans should focus on is my opinion.
 
bbsamjj said:
Her shot was off but she was super critical in extending possessions, as she got a ton of offensive boards. Impressive and mature performance.
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She’s been the subject of much controversy over the last few weeks but Ionescu’s a better player in the W than most give her credit for, in my opinion. She’s also probably the best case study for projecting Clark’s future success in the league. I consider Clark to be an upgraded version of Sabrina in most aspects.
 
cancontent said:
The roster isn't perfect but the team seems to be improving in some areas. While some may not see it, the season has been successful so far and there's many more games to go. How Indiana builds upon this for next season is what fans should focus on is my opinion.
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Indiana is way more competitive than in previous seasons for sure. There's an alternate universe where they are 16-7 this season, but I still think the leadership of this team is the difference between all these close losses and actual wins.
 
MilfordHusky said:
L.A. underachieved for years, so I doubt it.

Maya was the ultimate winner. Her 2018 final season stands out as an anomaly. With her in the lineup, they went:

27-7
27-7
26-8
25-9
22-12
28-6
27-7
18-16

Since Maya stepped away, they have gone:

18-16
14-8
22-10
14-22
10-13


The year before Maya arrived, they were 13-21.

If my math is correct, that's 200-72 for .735 with Maya and 91-90 for .503 without her.

Their 2 best years without Maya were 2020 and 2021, when they had Crystal Dangerfield, interestingly.
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I thought I'd look up numbers with Parker for comparison. I looked at game by game records for seasons where Parker missed notable stretches (2009-2011, 2015, 2019) but just included overall team record for the years where she played 30+ games.


Sparks with Parker:
2008: 20-14
2009: 15-10
2010: 3-7
2011: 8-9
2012: 24-10
2013: 24-10
2014: 16-18
2015: 11-5
2016: 26-8
2017: 26-8
2018: 19-15
2019: 14-8
2020: 15-7
221-129, 63% win percentage


Without Parker:
2007: 10-24
2009: 3-6
2010: 10-14
2011: 7-10
2015: 3-15
2019: 8-4
2021: 12-20
2022: 13-23
2023: 8-15
74-131, 36% win percentage

27% difference with Parker vs. 23% difference with Moore. Numbers don't tell the whole story and there are many different factors that go into a team having success, but I'd argue Parker is there too when looking at franchise impact. Same with Catchings with a 30% difference. (55% win percentage over her career, 25% win percentage year prior + years after)

Diving deeper into LA, they had a stretch of glory days prior to Parker, as LA was elite from 1999-2006, going 192-89 (68% win percentage) over those 8 years. In 2007 Leslie was out the full year which is why the team success dropped off but then picked up again in 2008/2009 when they had both Leslie/Parker. Parker had injury problems in 2010/2011 and the franchise didn't turn a corner until they landed Nneka in 2012, which led to a very successful stretch from 2012-2020 until Fisher dismantled the team and the franchise has struggled since.

The Minnesota Lynx, quite frankly, were not good prior to Moore joining and didn't find success until she arrived. It wasn't just Moore that made the difference (landing Whalen in 2010 set the tone, plus Augustus was finally healthy in 2011) but when looking at overall franchise history, Minnesota's success has been centered around Maya's career. Tamika Catchings is another parallel and probably the most applicable example, though Indiana at its ceiling was never at Minnesota's level, but the franchise has been truly abysmal since Catchings left.
 
GCKSFN4L said:
Indiana is way more competitive than in previous seasons for sure. There's an alternate universe where they are 16-7 this season, but I still think the leadership of this team is the difference between all these close losses and actual wins.
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No argument there. Hopefully this gets addressed in the off-season, if not sooner somehow.
 
Interesting quote from this article talking about rookies with respect to Sabally of the Liberty. I'm obviously not seeing what the writer has been able to determine off of statistics.

"Playing just over 10 minutes a game, she’s averaging 3.3 points and 2.8 rebounds and has the fourth-highest scoring efficiency on the team."

herhoopstats.substack.com

Fighting For Minutes

WNBA rookie round-up, 7/11 – 7/25
herhoopstats.substack.com herhoopstats.substack.com
 
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