WNBA 2010 – What’s Going On In the West?

It’s June 19. After 10-12 games played only one team in the WNBA’s Western Conference has a winning record. ONE. That’s pathetic. So…what the heck is going on in this half of the league, and what can they do to make a better showing?

Seattle Storm

The only team with a winning record at 10-2. I don’t think this isn’t the best team that the Storm have served up (that would be their championship team), but they are pretty good. They can look a bit mediocre at times, but right now they are the class of the West. Why?

If we remove Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson from the picture, given that they’ve been constants for the team for, like, a hundred and thirty years now, what’s different other than both are healthy at the same time? One word: Uconn. Swin Cash, finally healthy, was the difference maker last year. This year they’ve added Svetlana Abrosimova. Svet has become the versatile bench player that is key for being a power in the league. LJ plus Uconn adds up to a powerful formula.

Phoenix Mercury

Phoenix sits in second place in the conference with a losing record of 5-6. How can this be? It largely comes down to one thing: the trade. Losing Pondexter changed the team’s chemistry and ability. It increases coverage on Taurasi as well as makes her more responsible for team leadership–not that she isn’t up to the task. Now that Candice Dupree is melding into the system, the Mercury are looking much more polished than they did earlier in the season. Still, Dupree isn’t the fearsome playmaker that CP23 was.

That said, the Mercury can be nearly as strong team as they were last year. They need to keep up the “Go-go”. You see the team slow down at points in the game in a way they didn’t last year. They almost become half-court. That’s on the players. Do they have a strong enough desire to push through and not only play the offense but to stick it out on defense? They’ve got 2/3rds of a season to find out.

San Antonio Silver Stars

This season, 4-6 earns you third place in the West. I think this is a more solid team than their record suggests. I don’t think they are a championship-caliber team at the moment, but they are a solid play-off contender. I’m going to chalk up some of the early season problems to the shifting waters of the new coaching situation. With new head coach Brondello having giving birth and returning to the sidelines, I think some stability will return to the Stars.

All I can really think to say about the team is that they are solid but sort of average considering the league as a whole. Not so much ooh-wow (though Hammon has her moments), but solid. For them to succeed, they need to do what they do as well as they can and not be affected by the other team; i.e. play their game. If they do that, if they execute within their system, I think they’ll make it into the post-season.

Tulsa Shock

Tulsa is a weird team to consider. They have a 3-7 record and, if the season ended today, would have the fourth playoff spot. (I know!) I’ve described the Shock as “Phoenix-lite”, but that might be unfair. While the vaunted “40-minutes-of-hell” system isn’t as punishing offensively as Phoenix’s is, it can be damned pesky on the defensive end. I think Richardson’s system could be a very effective one in this league. So why isn’t it doing better?

In part, I’d say it’s because of Richardson. Some of the player movements he’s made have been…well, curious. Also, when you remark that you have a team of reserves, that doesn’t really do a lot for overall team moral. It just doesn’t seem like he quite “gets” his team. But it’s unfair to lay it all on his shoulders. I’m not sure the team has quite figured out everyone’s roles in the system. Some of that is player movement. Some of that is, yes, quality of players available, and some of it may be that they haven’t quite grasped the “why” of what they are doing yet.

If Tulsa starts clicking soon, though, they could be a very dangerous team.

Los Angeles Sparks

Who would have thought that the Sparks would be in fifth place a third of the way into the season with a 3-8 record? I certainly didn’t. Yes, they lost Lisa Leslie, but they played without Leslie before and did OK. What changed? Well…head coaches for one.

Jennifer Gillom likely thought that her move from Minnesota to the Pacific coast would be more successful. Her team has several Olympians and long-time veterans (many of whom she played against). She has Candace Parker. Check that…she had Candace Parker, who is lost for the rest of the season to repair her oft-dislocated shoulder. What can they do to fix things?

I think that this team needs to do foundation building–and, in this, losing Parker and the team’s dependency on her might be a good thing. The Sparks are stocked with veterans who are more-likely-than-not in their last seasons. Thompson, Penicheiro, Milton-Jones, and Lennox are in their 14th, 13th, 12th, and 11th seasons (respectively). You have promising young players in Toliver, Wisdom-Hylton, Quinn, and Riley. With the loss of Parker, you don’t have a useful center. So you build.

You make Toliver the franchise point guard with Penicheiro her mentor/coach. You focus on developing Wisdom-Hylton into the new threat given that she and KT already have on-court chemistry going on and Lindsay is showing a welcome versatility. Quinn stays your two along with Lennox. Thompson and Milton-Jones are Olympians for a reason, so they round out the front court.

For defense…Gillom actually needs to put one in. Right now it doesn’t look much more organized than in a pick-up game. Phoenix’s defense looks better (that’s saying something). The players also need to commit to it, which many of them don’t seem to be doing. On offense…more movement, guards need to slash to the basket, and overall better spacing. this small team isn’t going to win in the half-court, so they need to stop pretending that it will.

Minnesota Lynx

And now we’ve reached the bottom rung. The Lynx, at 3-9, are (amazingly) just one win from an if-the-season-ended-today playoff spot.

I’m truly stunned that the Lynx don’t have a better record. True, they started the season with their stars Candice Wiggins and Seimone Augustus healing from off-season surgeries, which, combined with another new coach (what is this….Washington?), aggravated their slow start. I think that once they are fully integrated into the line-up that they should bolster what has been an anemic offensive output, despite some amazing games by rookie Monica Wright.

Like the other teams on these lower rungs, the Lynx need to work on fixing their defensive strategy. Clearly, letting other teams shoot three-pointers at will isn’t working for them. As with the Sparks, whatever it is that they are doing, they need to do something different.

The Conference

Right now, it seems like the Storm are the only ones having anything close to a balanced system. They are strong in both offense and defense. They have a solid bench that doesn’t lose games for them. As for the rest of the West…

Maybe a little too much offense at the expense of defensive discipline, overall. Some off-season player movements have hurt some teams as has (esp. in Minnesota) the short roster. Only the Storm and the Mercury have the same head coaches as last year. Unsurprisingly, they are also the top two teams in the conference. San Antonio had as semi-change in coaches, and they are in third. Says a lot for continuity, no?