Can you believe the WNBA’s 30th season celebration is almost over?

The WNBA’s 30th regular season is winding down, and it’s an exciting race to the postseason. We know who’s in the Playoffs and who will be wishing for some lottery luck, but there’s still a lot to be decided in the final order of the standings.

Back to the WNBA’s 30th season celebration… is there still a lot to be decided? Is it almost over? Did it ever really start?

Kudos to everyone involved in the anniversary game between the New York Liberty and Los Angeles Sparks, which featured a reunion of many of the league’s originals and legends while also in retrospect seemingly capping the career of Sparks legend and one of the WNBA’s all-time greats, Nneka Ogwumike, with her own game-winner.

Shout-out to the Sheryl Swoopes GOAT campaign we can all probably recite from memory at this point, and salute to the occasional throwback uniforms.

A cheeky wink to the Phoenix Mercury and their celebration of Diana Taurasi — and by virtue of her storied career, a retelling of the franchise’s history.

All love to the variety of former players and coaches appearing regularly on studio shows and game broadcasts, representing the league’s history in high definition multiple nights a week. It’s all worth it if for nothing more than a new generation of fans getting to know Chamique Holdsclaw’s greatness and strength, Kara Lawson’s acumen, and Tina Charles’ quiet coolness.

But something is missing.

What fun it was seeing the likes of Lauren Jackson, Deanna Nolan, Elena Delle Donne, and Rebekkah Brunson take the court again during All Star weekend. I suspect Cynthia Cooper is still a little sore and Teresa Weatherspoon is still in the film room.

Was that it? It felt like a taste, what could have been a fine appetizer for a bigger celebration of the milestone and all the history behind it. I suppose it still could be, but it’s feeling too late.

After the table was set with another monumental — transformative, even — CBA ratification which led into free agency frenzy, what followed is incredible on-court play competing for attention with all the wrong things. Where the players have always been the loudest voices for the league, this season has been littered with arguments about officiating, more distraction from Cathy Engelbert, including her retirement news, and bad-faith actors crashing the party with bigotry and hate. The celebration is soured.

The players continue to shine on the court, especially when the league and its teams remember to turn the lights on. The fans continue to show up, at times seemingly reminding the league as a collective what we all thought it stood for. All the while, leadership is lacking in every room. Intention is left unsaid, so who’s going to rally behind it?

It should be a celebration of 30 years of building through turbulence and an acceleration into a new phase with a cultural wind at the league’s back for the first time. Instead, the air is hazy, and without strong, vocal leadership, the potential continues to feel unrealized. The players have always been great and keep getting greater. The missteps have always been there and now feel even louder.

But, hey, how about that new WNBA Finals logo?

About that Top 30

At the start of the year I began the process of naming a Top 30, an exercise I’ve been building on the past few years.

Even in that post I called out that the season itself was uncertain. Silly me, I never even considered the possibility that the season might happen but leave out the obvious ritual of naming the league’s greatest players. I waited for the announcement to come, for the WNBA to tell us all what the rules and process will look like this time.

Instead, nothing.

Almost five years ago to the day, Cathy Engelbert herself made the case for the list in the press release formally announcing the roster.

Throughout this season, the WNBA and our fans are celebrating the impact the WNBA has made on sports and society over a quarter of a century.

I can think of no better way to honor those responsible for that impact than by unveiling the members of this prestigious group, The W25.

Survey the league’s players and maybe a majority would say that the commissioner’s retirement announcement is a preferable honor to a top players list, but surely it’s not one or the other.

Some will argue these kinds of lists are just opinion and silly conversation fodder, and they’re not wrong. It’s just not the totality of it. Where else do you get a digestible snapshot of the league’s history? When else do conversations about Chelsea Gray being the heir to Ticha Penicheiro’s throne of passing pizzazz surface? How else do you coax out the likes of Nolan and Jackson to stand rightfully among their peers, to have their names printed alongside 28 other legends of the game, not only to attempt a handful of half-court shots?

The present and the fuse lit for the future deserve the focus, but the past 30 years don’t have to be sacrificed. With the influx of new fans and interested eyeballs, now more than ever is the time to highlight the MVPs who came and went, the defensive masters who rattled opponents, and the champions who speak up for the voiceless.

Did the league just drop it as an expense they didn’t want to take on? Even the “Top 30 Plays” they promised back in April seems more like a possibility than a certainty as we sit in September.

In the absence of a true Top 30 Players, I’m just going to see my own list through instead. There may be no comparison of my results to the media consensus. I guess there will be no leather jackets nor group photo, but a season of celebration deserves at least this bit of consistency.

The 30

Let’s just cut to the chase, presented in alphabetical order:

1. Seimone Augustus
2. Sue Bird
3. Swin Cash
4. Tamika Catchings
5. Tina Charles
6. Cynthia Cooper
7. Elena Delle Donne
8. Sylvia Fowles
9. Chelsea Gray
10. Yolanda Griffith
11. Brittney Griner
12. Becky Hammon
13. Lauren Jackson
14. Jonquel Jones
15. Lisa Leslie
16. Angel McCoughtry
17. Maya Moore
18. Deanna Nolan
19. Nneka Ogwumike
20. Candace Parker
21. Ticha Penicheiro
22. Cappie Pondexter
23. Katie Smith
24. Breanna Stewart
25. Sheryl Swoopes
26. Diana Taurasi
27. Tina Thompson
28. Courtney Vandersloot
29. Lindsay Whalen
30. A'ja Wilson

The process

Fair warning: I’m not going to re-argue everyone’s cases this time around, so if you’re interested in more of the process, here’s some reading material:

• My W25

• Piecing together a hypothetical W28

• Let’s build a W29

When I started my “W30” process I wrapped with these 21 locks:

And we had these as the remaining candidates for those last nine spots:

Much like on lists past, when you have the list boiled down a bit more, it becomes easier to see some names rise and some fall. All of these players made their mark and had great careers, but at this point it’s about who separated themselves from the rest.

In: Tina Charles, Chelsea Gray, Yolanda Griffith, Jonquel Jones, Deanna Nolan

MVPs and Finals MVPs abound. Gray was the toughest cut when I made my W28, and I think another championship and a legend that kept growing into this season make it easier to slot her into that spot. Not many players with four championships and the kind of impact she has made on each one. Not quite the defender that Penicheiro was, but a special kind of clutch scorer. This year there’s room for both.

Out: Janeth Arcain, Alana Beard, Napheesa Collier, Kahleah Copper, Skylar Diggins, Katie Douglas, Candice Dupree, Cheryl Ford, Sabrina Ionescu, Jewell Loyd, Taj McWilliams-Franklin, Emma Meesseman, DeLisha Milton-Jones, Plenette Pierson, Kelsey Plum, Allie Quigley, Ruth Riley, Jackie Young

Some players here still have a chance to prove out their spot on a future list, and many of the rest were longtime contributors to winning. There are a few Finals MVPs in this group (Copper, Meesseman, Riley), and it speaks mainly to their lack of major individual impact or incredible consistency in the WNBA beyond that. The most likely player to rise out of this cut in the future is Collier, who could be picking up some major hardware to boost her case this year. Just hasn’t happened yet.

That brings it down to 11 total candidates for four remaining spots: Bonner, Brunson, Cash, Holdsclaw, Howard, McCoughtry, Penicheiro, Taylor, Thomas, Vandersloot, and Weatherspoon.

Honestly, this comes down to similar arguments as in my W29, so I’m not going to repeat too much of it. It’s splitting hairs at this point, and there are personal preferences that definitely creep in (and personal preferences I’m fighting hard against, Penny Taylor!), but my final four here to make the list were (as you already know): Swin Cash, Angel McCoughtry, Ticha Penicheiro, and Courtney Vandersloot. Some quick notes on those who made it:

• Swin Cash: Cash is probably always going to be on the fringe here and is boosted by her off-court impact, which has been a major part of my argument since the W25. It will be fascinating to see if that case continues to grow, particularly with WNBA leadership shifts coming.

• Angel McCoughtry: McCoughtry was my last cut from the W25, and like Cash she’s always going to be on this fringe but no one has surpassed her since I included her starting with my W28. The combination of scoring and defense was special.

• Ticha Penicheiro: Penicheiro no-looked so Gray could behind-the-back the inbounds pass, so to speak. The early era didn’t have the same flash without Ticha, and she still sits near the top of both the assists and steals leaderboards, so she’s in.

• Courtney Vandersloot: Bird, Gray, Penicheiro, Whalen, and Vandersloot. I sat with whether or not this list is too point guard-heavy for a while, but the two-time champion and second all-time assists leader (who still has a chance to pass Bird, if she keeps going) has a spot here. Five very different guards who have helped write the story of the first 30 years.

And for a few of those who didn’t:

• Alyssa Thomas: This is the hardest cut this time around. There’s no doubt Thomas is one-of-one. The triple-doubles both stand alone and created conversation all their own. It honestly may be that the Mercury dropping off a cliff this season took her out of everyone’s vision this year, but she also hasn’t added any major hardware to her collection. The case is still lacking, but if anyone's going to make a late-career push for an MVP or even a championship and Finals MVP, it's likely Thomas.

• DeWanna Bonner: No real movement up the charts since the last several attempts at this list. The longevity and leaderboard moves are impressive, but not quite enough. If she can help push the Atlanta Dream to the Finals and possibly even a ring this postseason, it would be an interesting discussion next time around.

• Penny Taylor: Every year I say if this list were three-to-five wider, Taylor would probably easily be in. Honestly, she’s still right there for me. A key part of those exceptional Mercury years, she was an all-around great who just played alongside some American stars who got a lot more shine.

• Rebekkah Brunson: Just putting this paragraph here to remind everyone Brunson can wave her hand full of WNBA rings back at me, not that she’ll ever read this. What a legend.

• Chamique Holdsclaw / Natasha Howard / Teresa Weatherspoon: There’s a good mix of talent and high-level longevity in here. Howard in particular could still have a future case, depending on how this late-career run with the Lynx goes.

The end

Where that leaves us: every regular season MVP made it. All but four Finals MVPs got in. There’s plenty of reason to be mad at my list, and there are plenty of highlights to go look up. That feels about right.

Ultimately, it’s my W29 plus Chelsea Gray, which also fits the year-over-year theme that on an annual scale there’s not much change to be had. A championship or an MVP can really do it.

Unless the WNBA shakes things up and announces a “Top 30 Players” list is coming, I’ll see you all in a year for the next edition.