Episode 29 - Does the WNBA Need New Leadership? Plus the Queen's Classic and an All-Star Draft Preview

Welcome and Weekly Favorites

Caitlin: I think we’re at the point where we need a different approach to leading this league. Hi, I’m Caitlin.

Alex: Hi, I’m Alex.

Caitlin: And this is Raising the Game, a women’s sports podcast covering primetime performers, the business behind the athletes in the leagues, and what the growth of women’s sports means for the next generation of women’s athletes.

Alex: Episode 29, we have got a lot of WNBA to talk about this week.

Caitlin: I mean, when do we not?

Alex: It’s every week, but we have the All-Star Weekend coming up.

Caitlin: All-Star Weekend coming up at the end of the week here. Looking forward to that. Lots of different things going on around that, both on the court and some off-the-court meetings that I think are going to be happening. And then we’ll get into, I actually think we’ll start a little bit with NWSL. We had the Queen’s Classic, definitely have to hit on that between the Washington Spirit and Gotham FC, as well as other results around the league from the week.

Caitlin: So before we get into headlines, I do think we want to mention off the top, if you’re enjoying what you’re hearing, we really do appreciate a follow on Spotify, YouTube, wherever it is that you happen to be listening to us. On social media channels, love a comment, love a like. We often will get back to you if you leave us a comment that is one we want to engage with.

Alex: Yes, one that’s actually well thought out and makes sense.

Caitlin: Yes. So we would really appreciate that. We appreciate you all being here week over week. We get into everything.

Alex: Let’s do it.

Weekly Favorites: Sylvia Fowles and Jerseys

Caitlin: Okay. Mine is over the weekend. Last weekend, the Lynx were playing the Portland Fire on Saturday, and Sylvia Fowles, WNBA great, played for the Lynx for many seasons. She now is an assistant coach for the Portland Fire, and they did her Hall of Fame induction ceremony. She had already had her jersey retired by the Lynx, but they added her Hall of Fame to the banner in Minnesota. They do it after the game, and a couple of cool things made this my favorite. One, Sylvia Fowles is amazing. It’s wonderful to see players like her being honored that way.

Caitlin: So they go on the floor, they set up some chairs, and the team sits out there. What I thought was really cool was Portland Fire had just lost. They all stayed on the floor to support their assistant coach. That’s a real class act by them. The second thing was Syl gave a super emotional speech, called out specifically Coach Reeve and the impact that Big Syl has had on her legacy and her life. And what I noticed, sitting there looking at all the different players that Cheryl has coached and is coaching who come back in support of teammates they had, whatever you may think about her, she is a Hall of Fame head coach. She’s the winningest head coach in WNBA history, but she really builds a sisterhood with those teams. And she produces, just like Becky Hammon, future coaches.

Caitlin: Now, Becky has done it more by having assistant coaches under her. Cheryl has multiple players who now coach, and two of them sit alongside her every single day, Lindsay Whalen and Rebekkah Brunson. And then you see Sylvia Fowles on the opposing team. I just love that. Paying it forward. I love the connection and the honoring of each other there.

Alex: Yeah. Mine was, I think I had two, one sports-related, one not. The sports-related one was giving the girls their jerseys last week.

Caitlin: Yes, that was only last week.

Alex: I know, it feels like forever ago. And telling them we’re bringing them to a game in early August, a couple of weeks from now. I thought that was really fun. They look kind of ridiculous in there, a little oversized, but they’ll be able to wear them for a while. And then on Sunday, I went camping all weekend, and when I got home, the girls were super excited to see me, and they generally don’t express that very often to me in particular. So that was really fun.

Caitlin: Yeah. They missed you. They also immediately wanted to put their Olivia Miles jerseys on when we were watching the game on Saturday. So they’re already being put to good use.

Alex: Good deal.

Headlines Around Women’s Sports

Alex: All right, you want to get into the headlines? The Queen’s Classic between Gotham FC and Washington Spirit saw 42,000-plus fans pack Citi Field, making it the largest women’s sports event in New York City history.

Caitlin: So we’ll talk a little bit more about this match in a bit once we get to our full NWSL segment. But this attendance is second only to the Denver Summit game earlier this season, which was really cool to see. I think the momentum in the NWSL couldn’t be higher.

Alex: She Weekend was a hit in Vegas, with all women’s winter Olympians invited by rapper Flavor Flav to celebrate their achievements at the highest levels of sport.

Caitlin: First of all, shout out to Flav, I love that he pulled this together, really made sure there was a space to honor these women and their accomplishments. One highlight I saw was a panel with Hilary Knight and others playing at the highest level of their sports. And Hilary Knight was asked, when do you think you’ll say you left women’s hockey better than you found it? And, as she does, Captain America with the mic-drop moment says, when all of women’s sports have the same representation and visibility as men’s sports.

Alex: Wow.

Caitlin: So in one line she doesn’t exclude any other sports. They asked her about hockey. She’s like, all of us. I love it.

Alex: We love Captain America. We’re going to hit quite a few WNBA headlines back and forth here. While we were recording last week, Olivia Miles had a career-high 33 points and combined with Kayla McBride for 70 of the Lynx’s 104 points in a win over the Phoenix Mercury, to become the first duo in franchise history to score 30-plus in the same game.

Caitlin: I’m actually starting to feel like we need to drag this out because maybe they’ll do it again. They play the Storm tonight as we’re recording. Miles also last week became the fastest player to 400-plus points, 100-plus assists, and 100-plus rebounds in WNBA history. I feel like she’s breaking a record every week.

Alex: Every single week. Sonia Citron of the Washington Mystics becomes the youngest guard to reach 1,000 career points, a cool 98 days before her 23rd birthday. Tell me what you’ve accomplished.

Caitlin: Chicago Sky’s Sydney Taylor right now is averaging the most points per game in league history by an undrafted rookie. And I love watching this. We have seen her hit some major clutch shots for the Sky. With them losing Rekia, she’s really filled a void and does not look like a rookie on the court.

Alex: Toronto Tempo head coach Sandy Brondello has been suspended one game for inappropriate comments directed at Angel Reese.

Caitlin: We’ll talk a little bit about this in our WNBA segment. We’ll also talk about this: multiple sources told Sports Business Journal that WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert was not, in fact, going to suspend Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas until NBA commissioner and Cathy’s boss, Adam Silver, implored her to issue the discipline. What is going on there?

Alex: We’re going to talk about it. The NBA and WNBA announced an expansion of their partnership with TikTok through a multi-year deal centered on creator access, highlights, and live game discovery.

Caitlin: We’re going to talk more about this too. I’ve got a lot of thoughts here. And after record-breaking attendance in their head-to-head matchup two weeks ago, both the Wings and the Tempo have substantial crowd increases when moving to larger venues for their games following that. I saw some fans online being like, when’s the Tempo going to play a game in Vancouver, we’re showing up. The Canadians are here for it.

Alex: Yeah, I think they are. In NCAA women’s basketball news, the 2027 tournament will boast two major changes. The field is expanding to 76 teams, up from 64, and the selection committee voted to ditch the conference protection rule for the top of the bracket.

Caitlin: So, fun fact, what they typically do in NCAA seeding is say we don’t want these top teams from the same conference to meet too early in the tournament. And so what they’ve done in the past is you could end up with a team that is truly ranked higher, but they get seeded lower to avoid that matchup prior to the Sweet 16. Now the top 16 teams where this would happen will be locked into their true ranking. This has a couple of implications, including on the regular season, because now your true ranking through regular-season play actually matters for where you get seeded. Let’s say you’re in the SEC, a really dominant conference, and you’re ranked three of the top six teams. Before, because they don’t want a head-to-head matchup too early, you might get seeded lower, which then may have you running into better teams earlier. So I think this is a great change. There are so many eyes on women’s basketball right now.

Alex: Minnesota Vixen will play Pittsburgh Passion for the WFA National Championship this Saturday.

Caitlin: Pittsburgh Passion, I like that name. The Vixen won their conference championship with a walk-off record field goal by kicker Michaela Juriskova, 39 yards. And two pre-championship awards: Vixen head coach Connor Joe Lewis was named the American Conference Head Coach of the Year in the WFA, and Britt Peterson was named the American Conference Defensive Player of the Year. I’ve seen some highlights of Britt just picking people off left, right, and center at safety. Well deserved.

Alex: Tobin Heath, former U.S. women’s national team star and two-time World Cup champion, is getting well-deserved recognition for her tactical explanations during the men’s World Cup.

Caitlin: We’ve seen this too with Emma Hayes. A lot of people are like, whoa, this is great, accessible. Heath actually became the first woman on a technical study group run by FIFA during last year’s Club World Cup. When she was asked if she was intimidated by being the only woman, she said, I am by far the most experienced winner as a player in that room. We are here for it.

Alex: Women’s sports merchandising is exploding, but it needs to shift its focus.

Caitlin: This is currently valued as a $4 billion industry overall, all sports merchandise, but there’s room for more. There have been studies showing that women’s sports fans often can’t find the merchandise they’re looking for because the supply isn’t there. And they also say they don’t really love the styles that are out there. If you think about these merchandising companies, they’ve probably tailored more toward male fans. And now you’ve got female fans who, as we’ve talked about numerous times, are far more likely to buy merchandise if they like it. They’re much more likely to put their dollars toward teams and players and brands they like. So merchandising companies have to figure out how to match this demand, which is higher overall, but a different aesthetic. It opens almost a new market for them.

Alex: I imagine they probably were a bunch of men trying to figure out what women wanted to wear.

Caitlin: Yes, that is also probably a big part of the problem.

Alex: In PWHL news, the Boston Fleet re-signed 2025-2026 Rookie of the Year Haley Wynn to a contract extension through the 2028-29 season.

Caitlin: Just cool to see a rookie getting her dues and signed to that team.

Alex: The European Broadcasting Union just issued new guidance on how to film female athletes in an effort to eliminate an objectifying lens.

Caitlin: This is so important. From the decision by the European Broadcasting Union, this is backed by research where they found that women are ten times more likely to be filmed in an objectifying way. At the 2021 Olympics alone, 2,500 objectifying images were reported. So they went back through all the footage, scanned it, and classified things as objectifying or not. What athletes have complained about, obviously, is that these get misused online, but it also makes them hesitate when they’re competing, because they’re thinking, well, I can see the camera and the angle is not great. Women are so conditioned to be thinking about those things. So I love that the European Broadcasting Union is doing this. I hope it expands, because we just want the athletes to be focused.

Alex: Focused on the play.

Caitlin: And we want that represented to the fans and the young people looking up to these athletes. Women are not objects.

Alex: Absolutely. Kynisca founder and CEO Michelle Kang is working toward a goal of owning a women’s soccer team on each continent with the intention to accelerate global participation.

Caitlin: That name sounds familiar, we’ve talked about her numerous times. She’s already the majority owner of NWSL’s Washington Spirit, the WSL’s London City Lionesses, and Lyon in France. What she said in the interview I watched was, I don’t want young girls around the world to say, oh, that infrastructure is only in America or England or France. She believes that if the infrastructure and investment she’s willing to make, and hopes others will too, is accessible everywhere, you’re going to pull more people in and grow the game.

Alex: That’s what it’s all about. The USLW championship game boasted record attendance at Interbay Stadium to see the home team Salmon Bay FC win their first USLW title.

Caitlin: These were cool pictures. That stadium has very limited seating, but there were multiple rows deep of fans just standing around the barrier around the field. This is the team that our Minnesota Aurora lost to. And we just want to say, had we made it to the championship and had it been hosted here, we probably would have been close to 6,000. We could have gotten an attendance record here as well. Aurora games are fun, a lot of fun.

NWSL Recap and the Queen’s Classic

Alex: All right, moving into NWSL.

Caitlin: So I’ll do a quick recap on what happened over Match Week 12, which we just completed, and then we’ll talk about the Queen’s Classic. There was quite a bit of movement in the standings week over week, some interesting losses, interesting wins, some top teams playing one another. Coming out of all that, the top five are all within three points of one another. In that group you have Washington Spirit currently top of the table, then Gotham FC, San Diego, Portland, and Utah. It’s kind of been the same group the entire season. Then you jump down to Kansas City at sixth, but seven through eleven are separated by four points. So that battle for playoff positions keeps heating up. Last week Bay, who’s eleventh, right on the outside of that group, was in 13th. Orlando, we were talking about them inching their way up, but they dropped some. And Angel City FC is surging all of a sudden, coaching change, personnel change, they’ve won maybe four since they came back, playing great. The break definitely seems to have benefited some more than others.

Alex: It’s wild to me that the top six are within two games of each other, and then all the way down through 11 is within one game of playoff contention.

Caitlin: Exactly. Some pretty stellar performances. Rose Lavelle comes to mind for Match Week 12. She scored a goal in the Queen’s Classic and also scored the game-winner in stoppage time in their game over the weekend. Trinity Rodman is on a tear, four goals in four games.

Alex: Every time I open Instagram, it’s a new highlight.

Caitlin: She’s tied for fourth now in the golden boot race with seven, and tied for fourth overall in assists with four. Great to see her finding form again. She had a slow start to the season, and we’re starting to see her turn it on. And two more big returnees came back this week. Sam Kerr made her debut for Gotham FC, and Lindsey Heaps debuted for the Denver Summit over the weekend in a win over the Portland Thorns. Big win for Denver.

Alex: Queen’s Classic, let’s talk about it. For those not aware, last Wednesday Gotham FC played Washington Spirit at Citi Field, where the New York Mets play. As we said, they had a crowd of 42,175. This is the biggest women’s sports attendance in New York City since the 2023 US Open when Coco Gauff beat Aryna Sabalenka. Huge deal. Second only to the Denver game, which had 63,000 earlier this year. Gotham won 1-0. Rose Lavelle, on a press, forced a turnover, took a pass, pulled off to the left a little, super wide shot, chipped it just over the goalie right under the bar. It was fantastic.

Caitlin: Beautiful goal.

Alex: The other cool part is the first 7,500 people got a Rose Lavelle bobblehead that featured her dog, Wilma Jean, wearing their third kit.

Caitlin: Their third kit is cool, with the Statue of Liberty on there. It’s got those classic New York colors, like the Mets and the Knicks, the orange and the blue. That’s pretty dope.

Alex: And then Sam Kerr made a return, coming on in the 64th minute. She had a pretty immediate impact, a lot of action right away.

Caitlin: She immediately seemed to impact the game from the parts we watched. She just draws so much attention, and you have to, because she’s one of the best scorers in the world. But that Lavelle goal was just so calculated. You could see her take the look up and just, I’m going to do this right over your head.

Alex: I could see it.

Caitlin: It’s really bothering me that I can’t think of the player who had the assist. We apologize for not remembering. We’ll make it right. We’ll put it in the caption.

Caitlin: So really cool from a game perspective. I was expecting a little more from Washington. One of the critiques was there have been really awful wildfires in Canada and Northern Minnesota, and they were getting impacted by the haze and the smoke. I think they had to take a few more breaks for player safety, and that affected rhythms. There were some injuries early on for both teams that disrupted things a bit. But what I want to focus on is that this game was played in Queens. We just talked last week about how Gotham FC will move into Etihad Park in Queens in 2028, where NYCFC plays. They’ve been playing in Harrison, New Jersey. This is one of the winningest teams in the NWSL, the most successful, with amazing star power, and they don’t get the turnout they probably should be drawing.

Caitlin: This is one proof point. Certainly not every single time, but Etihad is, what, 25,000 to 28,000? And you’ve got some pretty soccer-mad fans right there. Is it just a matter of changing location and having more people close by who want to be at those games?

Alex: I kind of think it is. There’s probably a decent population density in New Jersey where Harrison is, but not like it is in Queens. And when you think about the diversity of New York City and people who just want a local team to be able to walk to, ride the subway to get there easily, and just settle in and watch a match, I think it’s going to be insane.

Caitlin: I would go. And it also made me think, is it worth it for the league to look at these other teams and ask, are they geographically located near transportation hubs? We talked last week about how some PWHL teams are moving to bigger spaces, while Boston Fleet is specifically moving to an arena closer to central transit. They’re not gaining capacity, but they feel they want to make that move for their fans. As the NWSL continues to grow and increase average attendance, which is up year over year, I think they’re averaging a little over 11,000 this year, where last year was about 10,000. They’re already at 1.3 million fans having attended games so far this season, the fastest they’ve ever gotten to that mark. Are we located in the right places where people can easily access these games?

Alex: If this experiment works, it’s one of the easiest low-hanging fruits, finding a new place that’s more central. What’s interesting is that even at the men’s World Cup, some big NFL stadiums aren’t close to transit. A soccer fan is going to be more willing to take public transit closer to a bigger city center than to some of these NFL stadiums.

Caitlin: We saw Mayor Mamdani in New York go buy a package of reduced-price tickets, and he mentioned this is a working person’s game. One of the things we have to fight is that urge to just constantly rake in the cash. I am very excited to see how Gotham, who has a very invested, hands-on ownership group who want it to be one of the best clubs in the world, continues to carve this path toward Etihad in 2028. Do they bring more games back into the city to keep fans engaged and excited about being right there in their backyard?

WNBA Standings Update

Alex: That’s all we had for soccer today. We have a large amount to cover for the WNBA, so you better lock in.

Caitlin: We do. Let’s do a standings update, and then Alex and I are going to talk about a few players that have caught our eye. From a standings perspective, the Lynx are still on top, on a five-game win streak. Actually, all top-five teams play tonight. The Aces were playing the Tempo, the Wings were playing the Liberty, Golden State plays the Mystics later, and the Lynx play the Storm. Golden State Valkyries are on a nine-game win streak. We’ll see if they can continue that tonight. I feel like the Mystics are a bit of a trap game, so they better come ready. Dallas is also on a six-game win streak and looked like they were going to pull out a seventh without Paige Bueckers on the court, over the New York Liberty, who continue to slide. They’re two and eight in their last ten, a four-game losing streak. I feel horrible for Breanna Stewart. She’s playing her heart out every single game, and they just cannot figure out their system. They looked lost when they played the Fever on Saturday. I do wonder about the coaching situation. Atlanta does seem to have stopped the bleeding, back on the up and up. And the Mystics, playing tonight, remain in that coveted eighth position. They have not given that up. There’s a bunch of teams below them, the Sparks, the Fire, the Tempo, that keep going back and forth with each other but never quite able to clear the Mystics. They’re good, they’re young. I think we’re seeing a couple of young teams start to figure it out. The Storm is one of them.

Alex: I think we talked about that right after the draft, that the Mystics specifically, if they can figure it out, they’re young enough, they’ll be a team to reckon with.

Caitlin: Even looking ahead, seasons out, the Mystics, the Storm, and I think the Sun have these really young cores. They’re missing it when they really need it at certain points this season. But man, I fear it will be wild in the next couple of years.

Players We’re Watching

Alex: All right, you want to start this next section of players we’re watching? We’ve got to talk about Kayla McBride. I want to start with a meme I saw last week during one of her high-scoring games. It said, I will name my first son Kayla McBride. That’s how well she’s been doing the past six or so games. Last six games, 23-plus points in every game. She’s averaging 26.8 in those six games. The Lynx are riding this to a five-game win streak into Monday night. They only lost one of those games where she scored over 23. And she’s moved into second all-time in three-pointers made in Lynx franchise history, second to Maya Moore.

Caitlin: All right.

Alex: She needs 67 more to be number one. She also became 20th all-time in points, passing Becky Hammon at 5,846. Up next are Lynx greats Simone Augustus and Lauren Jackson, both at 6,005. And I think she might be one of the most, outside of Minnesota, under-discussed players in the league. She’s just been lights out.

Caitlin: The last couple of games for sure. She’s been building up to this stretch too. I remember watching games earlier in the season and thinking, kind of do something. What impresses me is her fitness. She’s playing a lot of minutes for the Lynx right now, which is something you have to monitor at this point in the season, so you’re still freshish going into the back half. I’ve been watching Kayla McBride for years as a Lynx fan, and I will never get used to her release on her three-point shot. I also will never get used to her crazy layup. But it works for her.

Alex: You see that release right at the edge and you’re like, what’s going on here? It’s so quick. I think they showed a replay of one where she got the pass and released it in like point-three seconds.

Caitlin: She’s also, I think, a very underrated defensive player. She typically draws lockdown matchups for shooting guards or threes on the opposing team. She’s very quietly just in good positions, not always getting the steals and blocks and the stats you can measure, but disrupting plays, being in the right position, making sure her player is not an option for the opposing team’s offense. So I love it. We’ve got to talk about her more.

Caitlin: We also, and there’s been more chatter about her in the last week or so, but man, Kelsey Mitchell is on a tear.

Alex: She is wild right now.

Caitlin: So KMac had 23-plus over the last six games. Kelsey Mitchell has scored 20-plus in her last ten games. The Fever are seven and three in that stretch. She had a streak of 25-plus for six games, which has never been done by a guard before in the WNBA. Three of those ten games have been 30-plus point games. She went back-to-back 30-pieces this past weekend with 30 against the Storm on Friday and 33 against the Liberty on Saturday. She’s leading the league in total points with 606 for the season on almost 50 percent shooting. That’s 23.3 points per game. She’s the third-leading scorer in the league, 42 percent from three, third in the league in makes. And she trails only A’ja Wilson among players with meaningful minutes in offensive rating. I think she’s got to be the best two-guard in the league right now.

Alex: I agree.

Caitlin: She seems very focused on basketball. She just wants to win, and you can see her on the court willing her team to win.

Alex: When there’s stuff going on around her too, she’s just locked in. Give me the ball. She was like that in Unrivaled too. There’s stuff going on, people fighting or whatever, and she’s like, this is basketball, I have basketball now.

Caitlin: Barely shows any emotion. There was a moment in the Liberty game where she made a three-pointer, Stewie was going for the block, it was poorly timed, and she clobbered her. The three goes in, she gets the foul, she sits on the ground, and it’s like the first time I’ve seen her show emotion on the court. Really fun to watch. If you watch an Indiana Fever game, it’s like, what’s Kelsey Mitchell going to do tonight?

Alex: It’d be interesting to know what her gravity rating is and where that rates.

Caitlin: Good call. And then I have one other I have to mention, because a lot percolates around the Atlanta Dream. We talk a lot about Angel Reese and Rhyne Howard and Allisha Gray. They’ve got great talent. But Jordin Canada is like the little engine that can for that team. Think about a team leading the league in points off turnovers, second-chance points, fast-break points, and points in the paint. That’s Atlanta, and she is the point guard. She’s second in the league in steals, behind only her teammate Rhyne Howard. She’s third in the league in assists with 7.7 per game. She has six double-doubles, and they’re assist-point double-doubles, not rebounds. She’s providing this stability for Atlanta right now as they regather their momentum. She scored a game-winning bucket against, I think, the Sparks over the weekend. She’s so quick, really fun to watch.

Alex: Earlier when I said Kayla McBride was the most untalked-about, I think Jordin Canada might be the most untalked-about.

Caitlin: Agree. We love seeing really impressive play on the court, people showing up in big ways for their teams, which aren’t always measured by the stats. In this case, they kind of are. A little bit of both.

All-Star Weekend Preview: Team Coop vs. Team Spoon

Caitlin: All right, let’s get you prepped for All-Star Weekend. Festivities start, I don’t know, Thursday. It was actually very hard to find anything here.

Alex: The website is not great for the All-Star game. WNBA needs to get this fixed.

Caitlin: So we’ll do our best and share what we know. The game is on Saturday. I believe it’s 7:30 or 7 PM. The night before will be the three-point shooting contest and the skills contest. As of recording, they have not announced who will be participating in either.

Alex: Speaking of the WNBA website, I just checked it. They’re not there yet.

Caitlin: We’re going to talk about the All-Star teams. We talked a couple of weeks ago about the voting, fan voting and media and players, and how to weight these. We don’t need to worry about it anymore because the teams are named. Because of the 30th anniversary, usually the top two vote-getters become team captains and pick their teams like second-grade recess kickball. This year they brought in legends of the game, Cynthia Cooper and Teresa Weatherspoon, to be GMs. Those two picked back and forth in a draft. They did not get to select their first picks, though, which is a little weird.

Alex: I thought I heard it was a coin flip.

Caitlin: I don’t know if it was a coin flip or off of votes. Anywho, that’s how that went down. Before we get into the players, the way the W does coaching for the All-Star game is the top two teams’ coaches get to coach one of the two teams. So Becky Hammon of the Las Vegas Aces will coach Team Coop, as we’re calling it, and Big Cheryl, Cheryl Reeve, will coach Team Spoon. So keep that in mind, Coop and Spoon, because Alex and I will do our predictions.

Caitlin: You want to take us through Team Coop?

Alex: Team Coop, coached by Becky Hammon. Starters: Paige Bueckers, Breanna Stewart, Kelsey Mitchell, Natasha Howard, and Gabby Williams. Reserves: Angel Reese, Marina Mabrey, Dominique Malonga, Kelsey Plum, Jackie Young, and Sonia Citron.

Caitlin: We just put a question mark next to Kelsey Plum.

Alex: Yeah, I don’t know if she’ll play.

Caitlin: There are probably some backup people they haven’t shared yet in the event somebody can’t play. So we’ll see. And then Team Spoon: Caitlin Clark, A’ja Wilson, Olivia Miles, Aliyah Boston, and Jessica Shepard for your starters. For the reserves, Rhyne Howard, Allisha Gray, Jonquel Jones, Courtney Williams, Kiki Iriafen, and madame president herself, Nneka Ogwumike.

Alex: Are we doing predictions right now?

Caitlin: Should we throw it out there? Let’s get into it.

Alex: I’ve had so much trouble deciding who I think is going to win. On Team Coop, we’ve seen Paige will a Dallas Wings team.

Caitlin: They’ve got Kelsey Mitchell too. And Breanna Stewart.

Alex: At the same time, Team Spoon, coached by Cheryl Reeve, who can also, from the sideline, will a team to win. I’m tempted to go Team Spoon just because I love Big Cheryl. But it’s going to be an interesting matchup.

Caitlin: It’s hard to choose. This is a great All-Star. There are probably some snubs, we’re not going to get into that tonight. We agree. I feel like I also can’t pick against Big Cheryl. I love Natasha, as a Lynx fan. Maybe you choose Team Spoon and I’ll choose Team Coop so we can have a little friendly competition.

Alex: I’m going Team Spoon, and the best part is the girls have to agree with me because they both have Olivia Miles jerseys.

Caitlin: I know. All right, so before the game on Saturday, on Friday night they’ll do the three-point competition. I’ll be honest, I don’t even remember what the skills contest is. I think they dribble and do a bunch of different dribbles.

Alex: I think it can be different too. I think they change it up.

Caitlin: But the three-point contest is more or less the same. You get a rack of balls, five different spots around the arc, bonus balls and things like that.

Breaking Down the Three-Point Contest Field

Caitlin: Since we didn’t know who was named officially, and there are a lot of people they can choose from, we decided to look at some data and think through different ways you might approach the best three-point shooters in the league so far this year, the 2026 season. This was all sliced from the WNBA stats website and then laid out by Unrivaled data, who do a great job depicting different WNBA stats.

Caitlin: The first way we looked at the data: if we go based on total made three-pointers plus three-point percentage, we’d end up with Marina Mabrey. She has 81 made threes on the year and 40.3 percent shooting. Rhyne Howard, 79 threes made on 35.4 percent. As a side, these two are both on track to break the single-season record for threes made. Third would be Kelsey Mitchell with 71 made and 42.3 percent from beyond the arc. Number four is Janelle Salaün of the Golden State Valkyries with 66 made and 40.2 percent. And the fifth spot is a literal tie: former teammates and now rivals Bridget Carleton of the Portland Fire with 65 made on 38.2 percent, and none other than McBuckets, which is perfect. So you’d have to coin flip or arm wrestle between BC and KMac. Maybe they just shoot together.

Caitlin: The other way Unrivaled data looked at this is based on folks who have done a minimum of two and a half attempts per game and a minimum of 14 games played, who has the best three-point percentage? Because you’ve got folks who made a lot in that first group, but their percentage maybe isn’t as high because they’re taking a lot more. So in this group you’re looking at folks who shoot threes really efficiently, but often on a lot fewer attempts. Number one would be Monique Akoa Makani of the Phoenix Mercury. She averages 2.9 attempts per game, which is why you’re not seeing her on that top list, but 47.8 percent. Very good. Second, and I think this would be fun if she’s included, is Aliyah Boston, who has put in a ton of work on her three-point shot. She’s shooting 46.9 percent on 2.8 attempts per game, which in my view is the perfect number for a big. I saw Jonquel Jones on this list averaging like 4.7 attempts, and I’m like, girl, you can’t be shooting that many threes.

Caitlin: Third would be Sophie Cunningham with 43.7 percent on 4.1 attempts. What’s interesting in these next three, starting with Sophie, is that the average number of points per game you can count on from three starts to go up a lot. The first two, at 2.9 and 2.8 attempts, you’re maybe getting three to four points. Sophie, you’re now over five. Next is Leonie Fiebich of the New York Liberty at 43.3 percent on 4.3 attempts, and number five, Kelsey Mitchell, at 42.3 percent on 6.5 attempts, which is a lot.

Alex: It’s interesting that as attempts go up, the percentages go down. It’s easier for me to reconcile the total attempts and total made and the percentage, like we did in the first rundown.

Caitlin: What I think you can reconcile is that Kelsey Mitchell absolutely should be in the three-point shooting contest, because somehow she’s doing both. She’s making a lot, and she’s shooting very efficiently. She’s the only player who makes both lists.

Caitlin: Let’s talk about omissions, because we have to be inclusive of everybody. If you looked at the rest of the first scenario, most made threes and then by percentage, you’d be leaving out Marine Johannes of the New York Liberty, who I think has earned the right into the conversation, not saying she should be in it, but in the conversation. Natisha Hiedeman of the Seattle Storm, who is on 56 made and shooting 35.9 percent. Caitlin Clark, who right now has 55 made on 33.3 percent shooting. And Azzi Fudd, who has 47 made on 38.2 percent. Those round out the top ten of most makes. They’re also names that, if I’m a WNBA leader and I want people engaged with this, I might include. And you know what’s really weird? No Sabrina Ionescu.

Alex: She’s been part of it ever since she’s been in the league.

Caitlin: But she’s been out with injury to start the season. Seems like she’s finding her footing now that she’s healthy. She won last year. I can’t imagine she wouldn’t be on the slate.

Alex: She gets a free pass. Automatic, like the Masters. You just come back.

Caitlin: The other interesting thing, and then we’ll move off this, is these are all stats from a basketball game, where you’re defended, you’re tired. A three-point shooting contest is a way different animal.

Alex: The only thing you’ve got to beat is that rack of balls.

Caitlin: So we’ll see who they name. We certainly aren’t saying it’s these exact players. It’ll be some combo, layering in entertainment value versus success rate.

Skills Contest Wish List

Caitlin: Rounding out All-Star Weekend, the skills contest. We just talked about some players we think would be fun. You want to run us through that list?

Alex: We have Jordin Canada. I think she’d be great in a skills contest. You’ve got Olivia Miles, gotta have her, so-far Rookie of the Year. 100 percent.

Caitlin: Still kind of on the edge of the MVP conversation too.

Alex: Carla Leite. Paige Bueckers, it should be fun to watch her go about it. And then Veronica Burton or Chelsea Gray.

Caitlin: I couldn’t decide. I was also trying to think of players who got a little snubbed from an All-Star perspective but you still want out there for the show. So that includes Canada, Leite, Burton, and Gray. We’ll tune in and take a look.

Does the WNBA Need New Leadership?

Caitlin: Outside of the basketball. Scandal.

Alex: Intrigue.

Caitlin: There are some major issues going on, as you know if you listen to our podcast or follow anything related to the WNBA online, primarily online harassment, bullying, threats, things of that nature. The players and the players association have asked, and I believe been granted, a meeting with Commissioner Cathy Engelbert on Tuesday, which will be yesterday as you listen to this. So you may even know what came of that conversation before we do right now.

Alex: Some weird inception thing going on there.

Caitlin: This is really important. I am very glad the players are stepping in to say, hey, we’ve got to talk about this. I’m very disappointed that league leadership is not leading the way on that. And it makes me wonder, we’ve talked a little about it, but I think we’re at the point where we need a different approach to leading this league.

Alex: When you go back to the CBA, which we talked about for what felt like eight months, it was very clear that Cathy does not have very good relationships with the players. Not saying that as a commissioner you should have an amazing relationship with any of them, but she is purely a business person. She came in to bring revenues up, which is important, but we’re seeing it change from that being needed to, we need someone who is here for the current moment and the relationships that need to be there.

Caitlin: Cathy comes from a consulting background, I believe from Deloitte, and was brought in to fundamentally change the business side of the WNBA. You could make the argument she’s had some success there, certainly on the backs of some incredible basketball players. But I don’t find her to be the right leader for the moment the league is in now. And that moment is not one where we can look away from the business side, but we need somebody who, as the league has grown and the fan base has expanded, is willing to do a couple of things. The main one is player safety, whether that means physical safety, officiating has been a hot topic and that impacts physical safety, but also mental and emotional safety. You don’t need to live in fear of random strangers. Whether or not anything actually happens, the toll that has on you is exhausting.

Alex: To be clear, we don’t know if she’s doing anything at all, but that’s part of the problem. It seems like she’s doing nothing from that standpoint.

Caitlin: That’s part of the problem. When you’re leading through a crisis, you have to be out in front. And so far what we’ve seen from a headlines perspective is, oh, Adam Silver stepped in and made her take action on the Alyssa Thomas suspension. Oh, she canceled a last-minute live interview on the Dan Patrick Show, and it seemed she wasn’t communicating with her PR team. Oh, she’s at a golf tournament. Well, stuff is happening. Chelsea Gray is posting about being called something horrible online. Courtney Williams is getting death threats DM’d to her for losing someone’s parlay. So the players certainly have not only a right, but a need to have these conversations. And there’s a need from the league perspective for somebody who’s going to lean in and lead from the front, to figure out what this league looks like with this expanded fan base.

Alex: It’s interesting, not to necessarily compare women’s leagues to men’s leagues, but you look at the NFL and Roger Goodell is out there all the time. He may not be the greatest person, but he’s out there doing the things in front of the league to show he’s trying to take care of it as best he can. Gary Bettman, while not very well liked, seems to always be the one helping make the decisions to further the league or player relations. It doesn’t seem that Cathy is necessarily doing those things, in my view.

Caitlin: We’ll see what comes out of these conversations. I don’t even know if the players can get through to her. We don’t really know exactly what they’re asking for, but they tend to be very organized, like they were with the CBA. I imagine they’ve come up with a list of what they think should happen to help protect them. We talked two weeks ago about the NWSL launching a digital code of conduct where they’ll take punitive action on fans who honestly don’t represent the spirit of the community they’re trying to create. How it works, whether it works, remains to be seen, but I feel like that’s the right move. Jessica Berman, the commissioner there, recognizes the fan base is growing. You’re going to attract people who are betting on the games, which, sports betting is a whole other topic we don’t have time for tonight. You’re going to attract fans who are going to say hateful, hurtful, racist, misogynistic, homophobic things to players. And you need to have a no-tolerance policy for that.

Alex: Zero tolerance.

Caitlin: It has to be zero tolerance. Absolutely. So, yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see what comes of it. We’ll see where Cathy’s fate lies.

Alex: Speaking of betting, over-under on whether Cathy actually goes to the meeting?

Caitlin: I think she will. That one she has to go to, because if she doesn’t, then she has to make all these public appearances at All-Star Weekend and she’s going to get blasted for it. You’re already going to get a lot of questions about how the meeting went. It’ll be interesting to see what the players say versus what she says. We’ll be anticipating that even more than usual. So more to come.

Things to Watch This Week

Alex: All right, let’s move it on. We’ve got some things to watch. WNBA All-Star Weekend: Friday night, the three-point contest and skills challenge at 5 PM Central on ESPN, and then the All-Star Game on Saturday night, 5:30 Central on ABC and Disney+. Regular-season games resume Tuesday, July 28.

Caitlin: I’m going to make a bold prediction. We will see Napheesa Collier in action on a court next week, after the All-Star break. I have no real information behind that. I just think, Big Cheryl, we’ve got to make this push, we’ve got to make sure we stay locked down.

Alex: I believe it. NWSL: Portland Thorns versus Gotham FC Friday at 9 PM Central on Prime. North Carolina Courage versus Utah Royals at 6:45 on Ion, five versus seven in the table. And then Washington Spirit versus Denver Summit at 6 PM Central on Sunday on Victory Plus. LPGA, we have the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open, Thursday through Sunday, on Golf Channel and CNBC.

Alex: Women’s Elite Rugby, we’re in the final week of the regular season, all on Women’s Sports Network. Friday at 4 PM Central, New York Exiles versus Boston Banshees. Saturday at 5 PM Central, Chicago Tempest versus Denver Onyx. And then Saturday at 8 PM Central, Bay Breakers versus Twin Cities Gemini. That is the game to absolutely watch. If either of those teams wins, I believe they’re in the championship.

Caitlin: No pressure.

Alex: The championship is set for August 8. The top two teams go, so it’s going to be some combination of Denver, Bay, or Twin Cities. And we’ll actually be in the location of the championship, so we could go to a soccer game and a rugby game back to back. And then, as we talked about earlier in headlines, Women’s Football Alliance, Saturday, July 25, Pittsburgh Passion versus Minnesota Vixen at 1 PM Central on ESPN2.

Caitlin: Gotta watch that. Could be bringing some football champions, some hardware home to Minnesota. Who’d have thunk it?

Alex: For the first time in 60-some years.

Momentum and Setbacks

Caitlin: All right, momentum and setbacks. What have you got?

Alex: I’m bummed, mostly about Connecticut. They’ve just kind of been at the bottom all year, they’re going to be moving after this season, and it’s sad. They’re still putting up a fight, but it’s a bummer to watch them fizzle out.

Caitlin: You kind of wonder about some of these teams at the bottom, what the morale is like. I’m trying not to default to my usual go-to, which would be what we just talked about with the league leadership in the WNBA. But it is interesting, and we’ve been highlighting this regularly. Some of it is the media, the digital age, all of that, but we go into prep week over week, and the NWSL comes across as so not messy. They’ve got their stuff together, they’re playing ball, and we can just focus on that. We’ve highlighted the moves their leadership has made, both at the league level and within the clubs. Whereas when we prep for the W, we want to talk about the ball that’s being played, and you get dragged into, oh, there’s this going on, very gross mischaracterizations of what’s actually happening on the court. And then you’ve got things like Sandy Brondello’s comments toward Angel Reese, which we didn’t come back to, but very unfortunate and inappropriate. There’s this inherent churn with every layer of the W right now. And there’s such good basketball being played, and we should be able to celebrate that, and celebrate the women who paved the way to get here, and celebrate all the people coming in to be part of it. And it feels hard to do that.

Alex: I agree. Well, speaking of good ball, my momentum is Kaitlyn Chen scoring 14-plus points in 10 minutes. She’s, I believe, the fifth to do it, and the first to do it in 10 minutes on 100 percent shooting.

Caitlin: She was so clutch. We tuned in just in time for that. We had it on, but we got locked in in the second half of the Fever and Golden State game last week, and Kaitlyn Chen just flipped a switch, like, I am going to be here for 10 minutes. I love that, just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll go do it.

Caitlin: On that same vein, I love watching Natalie Nakase. She is so good at recognizing moments, when to interject and when to let them go. You can watch her actively pulling players over to talk to them. She’s got energy in her small, diminutive stature, somehow has this huge presence on the court. They made the playoffs last year as an expansion team, they’re going to be in the playoffs again this year, and they are my number one team I do not want to see in the playoffs. A lot of that is what Nakase is doing. They don’t have major superstars, obviously they’ve got All-Star Gabby Williams, but when it comes to scoring, they get a bunch from their bench. They have an identity, they stick to it, and it’s converting to wins.

Alex: It was interesting when we saw them play the Lynx, how much they move the ball around.

Caitlin: So much ball movement, so active on defense. Really fun to watch. If you haven’t caught a Valkyries game, I’d highly recommend it.

Alex: All right. Find us on Instagram, Threads, YouTube at RTG_pod, RTGpod.com, Substack at Raising the Game Podcast, and raisingthegamepod@gmail.com.

Caitlin: That’s it, folks. Thanks for being here this week.

Alex: Bye.

Caitlin: Bye.