TL;DR: WNBA, The Fever's Insane Season and Collier Calls Out the Commish

Collier ponders coming for the Queen

Growing up, I watched mostly NBA basketball.  It was the era of The Lakers and Celtics when I started.  The Pistons were my team for a couple of years just to annoy Lakers fans, but I loved the Lakers (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was my favorite player), and eventually the Spurs and Suns.  I also watched the NFL on and off there for a while.  

But over the years, I've been more than happy to get into different sports.  I came very late to baseball, and y'all know I now watch a considerable amount of Cubs. I've watched Major League Soccer and National Women's Soccer League, and very much wish Austin had a women's NWLS team.

I recall the early days on the WNBA and feeling it was generally a great idea. Austin was a town where women's collegiate basketball was more important than men's as the University of Texas women's team generally did very well, and everyone likes a winner.  And I always thought it was dumb that American players had no pro league (of their own).

Flash forward to the 00's when we lived in Phoenix, and I liked going to see The Mercury.  It was inexpensive, the fans were nuts, and the play was solid.  I was there when Taurasi showed up to much fanfare, and then showed why Phoenix was so excited to get her.

But...  TV coverage of WNBA has always been spotty at best.  And when something isn't easily accessible, you kind of lose track of it.  And WNBA got back-burnered by ESPN.  You might be flipping channels on a weekend afternoon and see a game, but not much else.  And it never got mixed in with the Sports Center level coverage.  Because why talk about a whole league when you can make up stories about what's happening in football in the off-season.

Like everyone else, I tuned in to watch Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese play in the NCAA play-offs a couple of years ago - and was blown away.  I tuned in to watch them get drafted at the end of the season and immediately go pro. 

Despite our usual Chicago affiliation, we ended up following the Indiana Fever a bit more when we could watch - mostly because those games wound up more on TV.  But coming into the 2025 season, I learned we could get a WNBA League Pass for $35.  That is less than the cost of ordering in Jimmy Johns with DoorDash, so I pulled the trigger immediately.   

Basically, I had no real favorite team this year.  I tracked with the Golden State Valkyries right into the first round of the play-offs, but between the European Tournament - which took away some key Valkyries players during a crucial window - and injuries, it was hard to know who was on the roster, week-to-week.  

Similarly, The Indiana Fever had a bizarre season that actually made them a bit confusing to watch.  By the end of the regular season, The Fever had essentially an entirely new starting roster as they had six players out with injury, including Caitlin Clark.  Clark played about 1/3rd of the season before sustaining what seemed to be minor injuries, but which had her riding the pine through the play-offs.*  

Six players is a lot of players to go down, and so poor Coach Stephanie White kept pulling in athletes on hardship contracts and trades just to watch them go down as well.  I almost grimaced when Bibby was added as she was almost certain to fall to the Fever's curse... and she was out after a few weeks of subbing in.

too many Fevers

Keep in mind, by rule, teams are only allowed to have a 10-deep squad.  So a hardship recruit is someone you pick up is someone you're calling who is not playing. They're shooting free throws in their driveway.  

Imagine you're Phil Jackson and there goes Jordan.  And then Pippin.  And then Rodman.  I mean, no one would expect you to get very far.  But you still have Steve Kerr.  And somehow he gets you to game five of the semi-finals into OT?  And then your Steve Kerr goes down from over-playing?

All of it was a study in what would bubble over on September 30th, just before the last Semi-Final Game between The Aces and The Fever.  

Look, I really mostly enjoyed watching the WNBA this season, but the reffing is like watching the lesser refs I remember from 9th grade high-school basketball who would call fouls because I was taller than other kids, and that seemed to be a foul in their mind.  Some refs, just as some baseball umpires, are very bad at their jobs.  And worse, the league seems to want to encourage physical play, but then is utterly inconsistent in what is a fair play or what is a foul.  

League Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who looks more like a Pickelball enthusiast than anyone who ever dribbled a basketball, has been quoted as saying "only losers complain about the reffing".  She meant "those who lost the game".  Which, yes, no shit, Cathy.  Because if you lost a game due to poor reffing, you're going to complain publicly - especially if going through proper channels has borne no fruit, Cathy.

But we also know how else she really means "only losers complain about the reffing".  

Like I say, I didn't pick a team, so any given night, I was watching Washington or Connecticut or Las Vegas or whomever.  And I could not tell you, after watching what was probably over 100 WNBA games this year, what constitutes an offensive charge versus what is a fair block or a legal screen in the W.  Which is wild, because those should be *very* easily understood concepts that players can model their play upon.  Instead, players were not getting called for full body-checking folks in the name of a screen, and getting called for merely existing when someone ran into them.

The bottom line is that *the most* publicly famous WNBA team (the Indiana Fever) - during a crucial league-wide growth year - lost six players to injury, one of whom may have been intentionally injured. 

If *I* was the Commissioner, I'd be losing my mind over what factors have caused my celebrity team to lose six players during the regular season.  I would assume that - if nothing changed - Mitchell, Boston or Hull was going down before the Finals.  Which, indeed, happened.  

At this point, I'd like to point out that the *reason* you have rules, standards and referees enforcing the rules, is to make sure people can play a game and not experience crippling injury.  Expecting the refs to do their job, which people do in high schools and colleges everywhere, is not a ridiculous request, and it sure doesn't make you a loser, Cathy.

This bad reffing was also in no way limited to The Fever.  Injuries plagued the league, including stars like Dijonai Carrington (Minnesota), Kayla Thornton (Valkyries) and Angel Reese (Sky).  Some of these, like that suffered by Thornton, could be career-ending.

More than that, as someone new to watching the WNBA, it sometimes made me wonder what, exactly, I was watching.  Because watching bad refs decide the outcome of a game, break the pace of a game, and allow players to beat the shit out of each other is bad basketball.

Each game the WNBA plays is a part of a product, whether that product is enthusiasm for a team, the game itself or the WNBA as a league.  And as a viewer, it was hard to watch games that had to stop constantly for refs to run to the VAR machine to tell them what happened, for coaches to challenge calls and be right - and then, sometimes, even if we could see the coaches were right, get told they were wrong.  And as much as I think the officiating hurt The Fever, in the playoffs, Becky Hammon rightfully pointed out that the Aces shot 11 free throws *in an entire game* and the Fever got 34.  That is bananas.  Something is wrong in WNBA land.

Anyway, it makes for a *bad product*.  And people do not watch or purchase a bad product.

Cathy Engelbert has the audacity to ask the audience not to notice what we see with our own eyes, and what has been the buzz online all season - denying it's a problem.  But... we've all seen basketball before.  We know how this is supposed to work.  And when it doesn't work - and the response from leadership is to deny there's a problem...?  

Like all people who don't know how to handle criticism, the WNBA is trying to silence the players and coaches.

When players, like the ever-outspoken Sophie Cunningham, say something - they get fined.  At first a few hundred bucks and then thousands.  Keep in mind, the average WNBA contract is for about $100K a year, not millions.  The top player in the league maxes out at $250K.  Those fines at thousands?  That's a car payment.  That's rent.  It is intimidation. 

When a coach like Cheryl Reeve (Minnesota Lynx) is so sick of what's happening on the court she loses it over a play that could, honestly, have been called either way- and then rightfully torches the refs in the post-game press conference, she was fined $15K.  And, yes, she was apoplectic as the play caused her star player, Collier, to go down with a buster ankle.  More injuries.

If the WNBA could have fired Reeve, I am sure they would have in that moment.  They then fined two other high profile coaches for having her back.

Look, Reeve may have been wrong about the call, but in the semi-finals with a season on the line, and a whole year of this...  it's maybe understandable Reeve was at the end of her rope and knew nothing changes without taking a hit.  

What, exactly, is Engelbert protecting?  The feelings of bad refs?  

On September 30th, that Minnesota Lynx star player Napheesa Collier called out Engelbert during her end-of-season presser.  If you've not seen it, this is one of the greatest moments in front of a mic I've ever seen by an athlete.

This is the moment where Collier, who knows the league needs her more than she needs Cathy Engelbert, put into words what we've all been thinking - even us new fans to the game.

Look, Collier has a few things going for her.  

1. She's a star of the WNBA, and she isn't a complainer

2.  She has spoken directly with Engelbert

3.  She co-founded the Unrivaled 3-on-3 league that runs in the winter before the WNBA starts its season, and her husband is the chief of the league - so she actually knows something about what happens to make a league work

But on top of that, Collier is part of the negotiating team for the WNBPA's collective bargaining agreement.  She's been working angles to make it make sense behind the scenes for a while.  And you don't go public unless you're not being heard.

And if the fines and dismissive statements by the WNBA are proof of anything, they don't want to hear or listen.  Which... makes no @#$%ing sense unless you take pride into account.  And it's hard not to imagine that someone who once ran Deloitte thinks this is actually small potatoes, and everyone should just fall in line with your wisdom.

Who knows what happens next?  Could be anything.  What we're getting in the short term are bloviating dipshits like "Mad Dog" on 24/7 sports networks who can't help but roll around in their misogyny on camera as all this gets discussed, and are so bad at understanding labor negotiations, one wonders what the networks convinced them they should take for pay.

Look, I'll *never* understand why so many dudes seem angry that the WNBA exists, or that women play sports.  It is the weirdest, stupidest hang-up I can think of.  

The bottom line is:  I've only been watching the WNBA for a season, really.  And the players really are great.  I agree with Collier that they do have some of the best fans, some are just regular ol' sports fans looking for a fix, and some are actively supporting woman in sports.  But we've seen other sports, and it's hard not to notice the challenges the players are facing on the court - and feel for them for the ones they're facing behind the scenes.  

Anyway - first game of the Finals - Mercury and Aces - is Friday October 3.

*I honestly have no idea what was really happening with Clark, and I don't think anyone outside of the Fever organization knows, either.  Maybe it is a really serious groin pull, but NFL players get back out there with fewer issues.