The Aces Between

Enough of it felt troubled, if not necessarily doomed, from the start, that this isn’t unexpected. A superteam! In New York! Even if the term became irrelevant almost as soon as it entered the public consciousness, we felt reasonably confident deeming what the New York Liberty were coming into the 2023 season as something like that. Granted, no less an authority on women than Derrick Rose has mentioned superteams before, regarding one of the men’s teams based in New York City; Oppenheimer had colitis, but at least he just wrote to his brother about it rather than to the New York press.

When the final possession of the WNBA season sputtered out, a reasonably well-drawn up ATO play from New York’s head coach Sandy Brondello that took just a beat or two too long before it went awry, and that was that. Once again, the Las Vegas Aces are the champions, the first repeat title winners since Lisa Leslie and the Los Angeles Sparks upended – whom else? – the New York Liberty, featuring – whom else? – current Aces head coach Becky Hammon.

Breanna Stewart’s free agency last offseason emerged to the forefront earlier this year, taking – a little too easily, a little too conveniently – the torch from Brittney Griner’s detention in Russia in terms of the public’s interest in women’s basketball. Everyone was looking to get angry, and stay angry. They have, for reasons having and not, but mostly not, to do with the WNBA.

All of this contributed to the WNBA’s record-high viewership this season – as other sports have found in their respective and relative infantile stages, it’s good to have stars join big market teams. With the Aces already demanding attention after their last title run, somebody had to present a reasonable counterpoint. Sure enough, an NBA governor well-versed in star-centric dreams stepped up to announce themself.

Joe Tsai, fresh off washing his hands of the begotten Kyrie-KD-Harden/Simmons Brooklyn Nets situationship, wanted to move from one would-be dynasty to another one, blasting more with hope than the apathy that has largely, paradoxically followed on the men’s side. To that end: Stewart’s joining the Liberty in February, a two-time champion and MVP (now defending, but we’ll return to that), was a boon to the game. With Jonquel Jones already there via trade, and Courtney Vandersloot soon to follow, New York was finally in position to have a super team (not so fast, Nets and Knicks).

Following a season in which the Aces and Liberty were 1 and 2 in various team-centric statistical categories, up to and including wins, both navigated relatively easily to the Finals, as many predicted before the season began.

In a what-could-have-been-a-statement Game 3, the Liberty won by 14, and last year’s Finals MVP for Vegas, Chelsea Gray, went out with a foot injury, as would be Aces center Kiah Stokes. In a boot and on a scooter, respectively, they supported their teammates back in Barclays – nobody’s favorite arena, but at least, now, a place we knew a winner could assemble. One did.

“The main thing,” as Aces forward A’ja Wilson said as she was accepting the Finals MVP trophy, “was that we cried together, we prayed together…and now we pop champagne together!” (Her head coach at the University of South Carolina, Dawn Staley, seemed simply pleased as spiked punch – which the Aces will presumably consume plenty of during their victory parade – watching her pupil in person during Game 4).

For any losing team, but especially for the would-be superteam that is the New York Liberty, this is sort of the inverse of LeBron James’s “those who are happy to see me fail” comments in 2011, following the Miami Heat’s loss to the Dallas Mavericks – except, well, the Liberty largely ignored postgame press, and the Aces have been a superteam unto themselves. That solicits discussions over the nature of superteams that even the most annoying people you know don’t want to join.

However! If the meaning of “superteam” ends anywhere near “a team that wins championships, plural,” the Las Vegas Aces have provided a prime example of one – one on its way toward a dynasty. A’ja Wilson was well deserving of Finals MVP, but her teammates deserved a nod in acknowledgment, supporting actors that you loved: before she got injured, Gray was probably the key player in this series; Kelsey Plum hit just under 40% of her three-pointers and was everywhere else on offense, all the time, even without the ball; Jackie Young had scored 26 and 24 in Games 1 and 2, respectively. The Aces were and remain loaded, and they stand positioned to be for at least a few more seasons.

Where Sandy Brondello and the Liberty goes is one thing, but where the rest of the league goes is another. In losing for the Liberty, there’s that bit of the Miami Heat in 2011 to this, though those Mavericks were not these Aces; in winning for Vegas, there’s a bit of the 2018 Golden State Warriors to it. Jones and Stewart are unrestricted free agents, and though they are expected to return to the Liberty, after unraveling during the Finals and especially in Game 4 against a shorthanded Aces team, New York will wonder if that can be enough.

For the first time in two decades, though, this league has a dynastic team on its hands. Dynasties are always good for business, and with the would-be face of the WNBA, Wilson, coming off perhaps the finest performance of her professional career, the target on Vegas’s back expands. How the rest of the league adjusts will be fascinating to watch. A reminder, by the way: let’s do just that.