The News

Not much WNBA news this week, but free agency is nearing, with some procedure just behind and just ahead us.

At the end of each calendar year, teams are required to get their lists of inactive players they have exclusive rights to down to 4, and this year New York and Los Angeles had slight work to do to meet the limit, and they did so just before the New Year’s Eve midnight countdown started:

The News

Big news out of Atlanta this week, as the Dream signed head coach Tanisha Wright and general manager Dan Padover each to five-year extensions to continue with the team “through the 2027 season.” Interesting implication that they each were signed on for just one year originally, or interesting wording for an extension or exercising of options on what was already a multi-year deal that further stretches their current deals to 2027, perhaps with renegotiated compensation? Either way, it’s a splashy commitment to the duo from a franchise with a lot to look forward to in their revitalization era.

We may never know what their two original contracts with the Dream looked like, but direct indication of the term length of their new deals is a good direction for the Dream and one the league overall would be well-served to follow across the board for players, coaches, and executives alike. A “multi-year” deal is one thing; a contract extension “through the 2027 season” is concrete and provides opportunity for analysis both now and as their tenure plays out.

This WNBA offseason has been a busy one for front offices, seeing about a dozen hirings, firings, contract extensions, and related moves even ahead of player free agency. James Wade is a particularly interesting case and example of why team’s publicizing moves clearly is so paramount.

So thankful BG is finally safely home.

brittneyyevettegriner

A post shared by brittneyyevettegriner.

The News

Cathy Engelbert reined in the WNBA’s position on expansion this past week, frustrating some fans while feeding a litany of social media accounts that now get even more bites at the “Where should the WNBA expand to?” apple.

At halftime of today’s UConn/Iowa matchup the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame announced the inductees named to their Class of 2023, a special moment as Carolyn Peck was in studio when her name was called. The five-member class is:

• Cathy Boswell (Veteran Player)
• Donna Lopiano (Contributor)
• Lisa Mattingly (Official)
• Carolyn Peck (Coach)
• Lindsay Whalen (Player)

Also to be honored are the 2023 Trailblazer of the Game recipient, the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA), and the For the Love of the Game recipient, the Dust Bowl Girls.

Let’s learn more.

Hi. It’s been a minute, huh? I thought it’d be a good time to catch up on some WNBA news, with some history to guide us.

Look Out Below

First let me say: #RethinkRankings.

(Originally published November 18, 2018)

The past few years have seen a few of the greatest scorers and rebounders in NCAA Division I women’s basketball. In 2016, Rachel Banham tied the single-game scoring record, putting up 60 points on 19 field goals against Northwestern. The following year, Kelsey Plum finished off her career setting a new single-season scoring record with 1,109 total points, also overtaking the career scoring record with 3,527 points in her four years at the University of Washington. Just behind her is the second all-time scorer, Kelsey Mitchell, who finished off her career at Ohio State last year with 3,402 points, including a record 497 three-point field goals over her four years. On the boards last year, both Natalie Butler and Teaira McCowan passed Courtney Paris’s 2006 single-season rebounding record; McCowan had 544 boards, while Butler set the new record with 563 total.

Of course, the three-point line and increased number of games helps a lot of today’s players overcome the long-held records; when we look at averages, no one has ever dominated in both the scoring and rebounding columns like Mississippi Valley State University’s Patricia Hoskins.

Mississippi Roots

(Originally published November 11, 2018)

Last season saw coaching greats Geno Auriemma and Sylvia Hatchell eclipse the 1,000-win mark on their careers, inching up on the women’s basketball record 1,098 wins held by the legend Pat Summitt. C. Vivian Stringer is now just one win away from 1,000 this season, and just behind her are the retired Jim Foster and Jody Conradt, both with 900 wins or more, and defending national champion coach Muffet McGraw will look to hit that mark this season.

But when you go down the list of Division I coaching greats, there’s a coach with 865 wins who is too often overlooked. Today’s “And One” profiles former University of Montana Lady Griz head coach, Robin Selvig.

Big Sky Born and Raised

(Originally published September 8, 2018)

Looking at the WNBA Finals, the veteran face of the Seattle Storm is undoubtedly Sue Bird, who has spent all 17 years of her career with the franchise. On the other hand, both the Storm and the Washington Mystics have players who have bounced around between several teams in their careers. Most notably, Monique Currie has spent most of her 13-year career in the nation’s capital, but she has also played for the Charlotte Sting, Chicago Sky, Phoenix Mercury, and San Antonio Stars. On the other coast, Noelle Quinn has been most consistently in Seattle, but she has also played for the Minnesota Lynx, Los Angeles Sparks, Washington Mystics, and Phoenix Mercury. One of the two will get their first ring this year.

For players who spend several years in the league, it’s not uncommon to move at some point. But today’s subject is on the more extreme side, having played for seven teams in her 10-year career. A WNBA champion in her own right for the Seattle Storm, today’s “And One” profile is on ABL and WNBA guard Sheri Sam.

Working through Uncertainty

(Originally published August 25, 2018)

Defense wins championships. While scoring is at a high in the WNBA this season, the two top teams in the league are two of the top three in defensive rating. The Atlanta Dream were third-to-last in offensive rating through the regular season, but they were able to climb their way to a top-two finish on the strength of their defense, leading the league with a 97.1 defensive rating.

In the pantheon of great WNBA players, there are few who have won multiple championships. Even fewer managed to win three championships, and Cheryl Ford provided a major spark for the Detroit Shock to reverse their path from the worst team in the league to three championships in six years. And she did it all leading with defense. Her playing career was cut short by injury, but she left a big imprint on the league regardless.

Basketball Pedigree

(Originally published August 12, 2018)

Offense is at an all-time high in the WNBA this season, in part due to the elite level shooters across the league. Rookie duo Victoria Vivians and Kelsey Mitchell have entered the league ready to drain threes at a record pace, LaToya Sanders is threatening season records for shooting percentages, and Diana Taurasi continues to extend her dominance as the league’s all-time leader in three-point field goals.

In a season where scoring is up and the schedule is condensed, there is perhaps no better place to put points on the board than from the free throw line. The all-time leader in free throw percentage is Elena Delle Donne, who — though shooting a low (for her) 89.7% from the line this season — has had a streak of 59 consecutive free throws in her career and has made 93.5% of her career free throws. The leader this season (considering players who have made at least 25) is Taurasi, who has made 153 of 166 free throws, good for 92.2%.

In the history of the WNBA, there have been many other great free throw shooters, but no one has made a claim quite like one of the original players in the league, Eva Němcová.

(Originally published August 3, 2018)

After spending time in Minnesota as a role player coming off the bench, Natasha Howard has made a strong case for a Most Improved Player award so far as a much more impactful starter for the Seattle Storm. Averaging just 11.7 minutes in 2017, she tallied 4.3 PPG, 2.4 RPG, and she faded to the background of a championship team overrun with All-Stars and Olympians. But this year in Seattle, all of her statistics have gone up, now playing 26.5 minutes per game and putting up consistent numbers: 12.9 PPG on 54.4% shooting from the field, 3.6 RPG, 1.0 APG, and 2.0 BPG.

That jump after switching teams is impressive but not unheard of. In fact, it’s eerily reminiscent of the jump made by the league’s first Most Improved Player, Tari Phillips.

Getting Her Start

(Originally published July 30, 2018)

Your defensive possession isn’t over until you secure the rebound. There’s no doubt that players who can dominate the boards are integral to any basketball team. On the other end of the floor, offensive rebounds can give a team another opportunity to score. In this year’s league, we’ve seen Rebekkah Brunson officially take over as the top rebounder all-time, currently with 3,348 total rebounds in her 15-year career. Active players are dominating the boards in ways not seen before; in terms of total rebounds, Sylvia Fowles, Tina Charles, Candice Dupree, and Sancho Lyttle are all in the top-10 all-time with years ahead to move up.

Rebound Percentage

Minimum 3000 minutes

(Originally published July 21, 2018)

We’ve seen a ton of elite-level passing in the WNBA this season. Combine that with some of the best scorers the league has ever seen, and the assists start to rack up. Four of the top seven all-time assist-per-game leaders are active in the league currently. Courtney Vandersloot and Sue Bird, both averaging about 5.55 assists per-game over their careers, are behind only Ticha Penicheiro (5.72). Lindsay Whalen (4.94) and Skylar Diggins-Smith (4.87) are sixth and seventh, respectively. Teresa Weatherspoon (5.27) and Dawn Staley (5.08) fill in the gap. Just last night, Vandersloot had 15 assists en route to a triple-double, creeping up on Penicheiro’s WNBA record of 16 (which she achieved twice!).

Career Regular Season Assists

(Originally published July 14, 2018)

I’ve spent a lot of time this WNBA season talking about movement up a couple of leader boards that, even at the time this is being written, are still very fluid: games played and blocks. Nine of the 25 players who lead the league in career regular season games played all-time are currently active in the league, led by Sue Bird, who is swiftly approaching DeLisha Milton Jones’s record of 499 games. In terms of blocks, two of the best to ever swat the ball away are a game or two away from booting a couple players out of the top 5. Sylvia Fowles (555) is currently tied for fifth with Tammy Sutton-Brown, and Brittney Griner (553) is just behind in seventh.

Career Regular Season Blocks

The WNBA’s all-time points, assists, and rebounds leaders walk in to an arena. Will it be the last time for all three in 2022?

Sylvia Fowles (3,712 rebounds) has already announced it’s her last season, and all signs point to it being a farewell tour for Sue Bird (3,048 assists). In the summer we celebrate the ten-year anniversary of she and the Indiana Fever winning their lone title, Briann January has also indicated this is it for her; will former Phoenix Mercury teammate Diana Taurasi (9,174 points) call it after one more run?

Every WNBA season has its history. Particularly for a league so young, records are always being broken, leaderboards are shifting, and players and coaches are constantly adding to their legacies. A ton will happen that we can’t predict, but let’s look ahead at some potential history we might be able to foresee.

Player Stat Milestones

From the very first WNBA attendance data set, the Across the Timeline mission has been to pull together and make public WNBA (and more generally, women’s basketball) data that’s difficult to find and/or scattered.

Today it’s time for something new, and while we’re fully invested in the WNBA Finals, another big WNBA event still to come this year (presumably) is the Draft Lottery.

Every Friday I’ve been diving in to a WNBA first in a series I’ve creatively titled Friday Firsts. If you missed any of the eight Friday Firsts posts, go back and check them out:

Three of the WNBA’s all-time great rebounders – Sylvia Fowles, Tina Charles, and Jonquel Jones – have all been displaying their dominance this season, each likely to receive MVP votes in a few weeks. They are also each responsible for one of the top three rebounding seasons all-time:

No games in the WNBA today, so we’re on to the ninth edition of Classic WNBA Monday. In case you missed any of the first eight:

• July 16, 2004 - Detroit Shock at Indiana Fever

On August 3, 2021, the WNBA officially announced its criteria for the W25, meant to honor the “WNBA’s 25 greatest and most influential players since its inception in 1997.”

This has been a tradition every five years in the WNBA, starting with the All-Decade Team in 2006 and most recently with the Top 20@20 in 2016.

No games in the WNBA today, so we’re on to the eighth edition of Classic WNBA ABL Monday. In case you missed any of the first seven:

“Allie Quigley, for three!” is one of the most common calls in the WNBA, and in the back half of her WNBA career, her three-point scoring has only gotten better. She returned from the Olympic break with 5 made threes in the Sky win over the Storm, followed by 7 made threes in the loss to the Wings. That brought her up to 9 games with 5 or more made threes at the age of 30 or later, tying her with the league’s first epic scorer, Cynthia Cooper.

In the next game she has 5 or more threes, she’ll tie another WNBA original, Ruthie Bolton, with her 10th.

Bolton may not be a name fans immediately think of today when talking about the W’s best long-range shooters, but she’s the focus today for exactly that. Like many of the league’s first stars, she was already 30 by the time she played her first regular season game, and she took very little time to find her shooting rhythm.

In just her second game for the Sacramento Monarchs, Ruthie Bolton made 6 of 12 threes, the first time she made at least 5 threes in a game, a first for the WNBA overall.

No games in the WNBA today, so we’re on to the seventh edition of Classic WNBA Monday. In case you missed any of the first six:

• July 16, 2004 - Detroit Shock at Indiana Fever

On June 29, 1997, a little over a week in to the WNBA’s inaugural season, the Charlotte Sting got their first win after three consecutive losses. Leading the team to the 67-44 win over the Cleveland Rockers was the Sting’s original franchise star, Andrea Stinson, who filled the stat sheet: 19 points, 10 assists, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, and 3 blocks.

In that first win, Stinson recorded the first points/assists double-double in WNBA history. And then, despite a successful nine-year career in the W, she never had another.

Let’s dive in.

Just under a month ago, the new WNBA Data Explorer was released. If you missed it, here are all the gory details.

Today, I’m introducing several big add-ons to the Data Explorer and a couple other major feature upgrades to the website elsewhere.

It’s time for another big feature drop at Across the Timeline, a new tool to dramatically expand the access to WNBA data.

A couple years ago, the WNBA Stat Finder and were introduced to provide quick access to WNBA game, season, and career records for players, teams, and coaches. At the time, there were no public searches quite like it for the WNBA.

Every Friday I’m diving in to a WNBA first in a series I’ve creatively titled Friday Firsts. If you missed the first four Friday Firsts posts, go back and check them out:

Every Friday I’m diving in to a WNBA first in a series I’ve creatively titled Friday Firsts. If you missed the first three Friday Firsts posts, go back and check them out:

No games in the WNBA today, so we’re on to the sixth edition of Classic WNBA Monday. In case you missed any of the first five:

• July 16, 2004 - Detroit Shock at Indiana Fever

Every Friday I’m diving in to a WNBA first in a series I’ve creatively titled Friday Firsts. If you missed the first two Friday Firsts posts, go back and check them out:

No games in the WNBA today, so we’re on to the fifth edition of Classic WNBA Monday. In case you missed any of the first four:

• July 16, 2004 - Detroit Shock at Indiana Fever

Every Friday I’m diving in to a WNBA first in a series I’ve creatively titled Friday Firsts. If you missed the first Friday Firsts post, go back and check out the details on Tina Charles recording the first rookie 20/20 game in the WNBA.

No games in the WNBA today, so we’re on to the fourth edition of Classic WNBA Monday. In case you missed any of the first three:

• July 16, 2004 - Detroit Shock at Indiana Fever

Twenty-five years in to the WNBA there are still frequent firsts: those special moments that are – even if briefly – unmatched. They both help contextualize a player, a team, a coach, or a game, and they can also make you pause to rhetorically ask “Really? ___ didn’t do that?!?”

To help celebrate this season, starting today I’m taking a look back every week in Friday Firsts, highlighting those memorable moments that broke new ground while tying them in to today’s WNBA.

In case you missed any of the latest WNBA feature updates at AcrossTheTimeline.com, I thought I’d take some time today to outline the most recent changes:

A WNBA place to land

The now includes links to every data set and tool – from transactions to records and attendance charts – for easy navigation. On top of that, quickly search for any player (and perhaps more soon!) in the search bar at the top of any of the WNBA pages. Clicking or tapping any of the search results takes you to that player’s page full of career stats, game logs, transactions, awards, and more.

A little over a fourth of the WNBA regular season has been played, and it’s another gameless Monday, so it’s time for another classic game. In case you missed the first two:

• July 16, 2004 - Detroit Shock at Indiana Fever

On Sunday afternoon, Dan Hughes announced his retirement from coaching in the WNBA, leaving a 5-1 Seattle Storm team sitting atop the standings in the capable hands of then-Associate Head Coach and former title-winning player with the Storm, Noelle Quinn.

The news came as a shock, but it provides a solid foundation for Quinn, a first-time head coach. It’s not often in sports a coach takes over with their team 5-1 and considered early title contenders. And just from this short clip, I got such a feeling for the person she is and that she understands this moment even beyond trying to win another ring:

It’s a gameless Monday in the WNBA, so it’s time for a classic rewatch. In case you missed it, the game from two weeks ago was a 2004 matchup of the Detroit Shock and Indiana Fever.

This week, in honor of the recent announcement that Lauren Jackson and Yolanda Griffith would be enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2021 (along with Val Ackerman and Pearl Moore), I wanted to find a fun WNBA game involving both LJ and Yo.

Mondays are often slow in the WNBA. This year there are just three regular season games scheduled on a Monday, and that’s actually a lot! There were just three Monday regular season WNBA games from 2015 to 2019 combined!

Sometimes it can be nice to have a day to catch your breath or catch up on a game you missed over the weekend, but if you’re looking to watch some WNBA basketball today, why not catch up with Catch?

Every Monday this WNBA season where there isn’t a game scheduled, I’ll be sending out a classic WNBA game you can find online. I think it’s a fun way to celebrate the league’s 25th season, and for many people it’s likely a first opportunity to see some of the older games and to see some of these players in their prime. These aren’t videos I’ve posted, and I can’t speak to the people who did post them, so they may not be available online forever, but let’s enjoy them while they’re there.

That said, in honor of her Naismith Hall of Fame enshrinement on Saturday night, I thought “Why not find an old Tamika Catchings game?”

The 25th season of the WNBA officially tips off tonight, and just in time for that, the league dropped some big news on Wednesday, including the details on the first season of its new “Commissioner’s Cup” in-season competition. The season-within-the-season concept was introduced last year but put off when the original 36-game regular season schedule was scrapped to work in a 22-game season in Bradenton amid the pandemic.

The rules ultimately boil down to this: each WNBA team’s first home game and first away game against each of their five conference opponents count as “cup games,” ultimately resulting in a 10-game record from which the top Eastern Conference team and top Western Conference team will face off in the Commissioner’s Cup Championship Game on August 12, just after the Olympic break but a few days before regular season games are scheduled to resume.

Every cup game is marked on the Across the Timeline WNBA game lists: both and , and you can filter the schedule down to the .

It’s all happening: WNBA teams have to cut down their rosters today to be ready for opening day, and the regular season starts tomorrow, but without a doubt the most important thing that happened today was the release of the 2021 WNBA GM Survey.

Since 2003 the league has polled its general managers (or whoever they ask to complete this task on their behalf) on a substantial set of questions ranging from who will win the Finals to who the toughest player in the WNBA is. Some of the questions have changed over the years, though a decent core of them have been asked every year. The one blip came last year, when there wasn’t a WNBA GM Survey released, likely due to the nature of how the season came together in Bradenton and the health and accommodation concerns that rightfully took priority.

While I have explored the past GM surveys before, I wanted to pull them together in a more structured way and take an updated look at the league’s history of GM surveys.

Pundits are filing their lists of 2021’s top WNBA players and teams – who will win it all, and who should go ahead and fire up the bin of bouncing ping pong balls and hope their team’s logo is pulled last from those weird, giant envelopes?

But as key to the 2021 season as who can contend to be this year’s best is the anticipated naming of the league’s “W25,” the top 25 players in league history. Several of the players who will undoubtedly make that list will also have spots on the lists of this season’s best active players, but for now, as I most often do, let’s focus on honoring the league’s history overall.

As a warning: I’m not going to come away today with my Top 25 Players; I want to start by narrowing the pool and discuss some interesting facets of these players’ careers and where the WNBA stands more generally. I’ll have my final list in a future post.

We’re just a couple weeks out from the start of the 2021 WNBA season and what will hopefully be a fun summer of basketball. I have a couple of things in the works to come in these next couple of weeks, but until then I thought I’d drop in with some links to some interesting podcasts that have popped up recently you may be interested in.

First off: the Across the Timeline podcasts page contains an extensive listing of podcasts centered around women’s basketball and/or created by prominent figures in the world of women’s basketball, including players, coaches, and media. Then, on the right side of the page there are individual episodes of any other podcast that isn’t centered in women’s basketball or the WNBA that features individuals or significant topics from the WNBA or women’s basketball more generally.

If you are a frequent podcast listener, you’ll recognize some of the names there, but there may be some newer (or older) listens that catch your eye. Additionally, I want to pull out a few recent episodes of other podcasts that are listed on the page that might interest you from a women’s basketball history perspective, in no particular order:

It was Charli Collier, Awak Kuier, and then a ton of surprises Thursday night when teams made their latest picks in the 2021 WNBA Draft. Who am I telling though? You probably watched.

The event was mostly virtual again this year, with draftees watching from home and ESPN hosts sitting especially far apart as the picks were announced.

The WNBA (finally) announced its 2021 regular season schedule, amid hints and leaks of a mid-May start.

Now we know the season will officially tip off on Friday, May 14, and it will wrap up on September 19, with 10 of the 12 teams facing off throughout the day. The WNBA announced an official Olympic break from July 15 through August 11, which is especially notable considering the last game prior to that break is on July 11, and scheduled games don’t resume until August 15, leaving space on both ends for potential rescheduled games, an All Star game, and/or a Commissioner’s Cup Game.

With the NCAA DI WBB Tournament wrapped up, and the WNBA Draft later this week, it’s time to dive back in to this upcoming WNBA season and what we’ve seen in free agency so far.

At the end of last March I broke down some numbers relative to 2020 Free Agency, and I want to do some of the same here, with an extended look at how teams are changing and how the movement we’ve seen since the new CBA took effect last year compares to player movement in years past.

How many players are moving?

Across the Timeline was started in 2018 immediately following the Arike Ogunbowale heroics to get Notre Dame their 2nd NCAA championship in women’s basketball. The goal then was to create a space dedicated to the history of women’s basketball, and that goal remains. By expanding what data is available and how and by digging in to the stories of the players, the coaches, and the games, we can better connect the game today to its storied past.

This newsletter will serve as a means of connecting interested readers to the written content coming out of Across the Timeline, providing one source for the type of work that had previously been published on the website or on the Medium publication, as well as articles and podcasts from other sources with strong focuses on women’s basketball history and its major figures.