Five Out: A'Night in History, A Word of Caution to Cathy Englebert and If This Is the End

A'ja Wilson made history again while Cathy Englebert made headlines. The Phoenix Mercury are also soft launching Diana Taurasi's retirement, forcing Chauny to stop hating and start reflecting.

Welcome back to another riveting installment of Five Out. Before we get to our featured content, just want to let everyone know what’s in the chamber this week.

NCS sat down with Notre Dame star Olivia Miles and Stanford’s new head coach Kate Paye. Both interviews drop this week so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a thing.

THE WNBA HAS A STORYTELLING PROBLEM AND NO ONE WANTS TO HELP

Forgive me for sounding like a broken record, but the WNBA has a storytelling issue and nobody's helping. This past week we saw six different major records get broken by various players and yet another grand opportunity was missed to connect the past to the present. If you scroll former Los Angeles Sparks center Lisa Leslie’s Twitter timeline, you'll see the legend congratulating everyone from Dearica Hamby for breaking her single-season franchise rebounding record, to A'ja Wilson for scoring the most points in a single season. 

Now, the problem I have is a lot of people who claim to care about the black women of the league were nowhere to be found leading up to these accomplishments. One such person is former NFL writer Jim Trotter. Now Trotter went to Indianapolis to ask Caitlin about the online toxicity occurring in her name, but when I asked why he couldn’t make the same trip back to cover A’ja Wilson’s historic night he responded “Because the WNBA is not my beat?”

This grinds my gears because both Andrew and I have said that Wilson’s greatness is not being documented properly because nobody’s really providing context. We don’t know how she got here, what her last off-season looked like, if she thought she’d break this record as fast as she did. Everyone  just keeps repeating “she’s great!” over and over again. Multiple people have announced they are writing books documenting the “Caitlin Clark Effect” and I’m just afraid we’re not going to give one of the greatest to ever play the game a proper story because when it came time to get into the booth and get to work, everyone said it wasn’t their job. 

Sunday night Wilson became the first player to ever score 1000 points in a single season and you can see the full reaction on our own Tyler DeLuca’s page.

CATHY ENGLEBERT MUST LEARN FROM LISA BORDERS

After her appearance on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” left much to be desired, WNBA commissioner Cathy Englebert took to Twitter to tell the people what they wanted to hear hours after they wanted to hear it. 

It led me to look at my tweets about the previous commissioner Lisa Borders. I was on that lady’s head — oh my goodness I did not like her. But the biggest blunder of her tenure that will forever stick with me was attempting to fine players for using their platform to speak out against police brutality in 2016. The fines were rescinded after the players started voicing their disdain and skipping post-game press conferences. 

While this isn’t an activist league, the league can get radical when the time calls for it and Englebert must keep that in perspective as she balances the business with the social/entertainment. Do not make them start flipping tables, or it could get ugly. 

WE NEED TRANSPARENCY WITH WNBA MEDIA VOTING…NEXT YEAR

As WNBA accolade season approaches I’d like to rehash an old argument in that the WNBA needs voter transparency. Every professional sports league in America releases the names and publications of its voters and I think it’s time for the W to join the party, next year. 

This year I already know people are going to use anonymity to freely vote based on unsubstantiated agendas that they may have already espoused publicly. And truthfully, I don’t want to hear anymore about how Caitlin Clark fans are ruining the game because they dared questioning a voter the same way my fellow Gamecock fans put up wanted posters to try and find that mysterious 4th place voter. I think we need a year for the mass hysteria the new attention brought to die down and then we get to business because the people deserve to know! 

I SAY THAT BECAUSE MIP IS GETTING SILLY 

Shame is our greatest natural resource and we must use it wisely when we do get voter transparency because every year Most Improved Player gets sillier and sillier. I will expound on this in a later article, but there needs to be some set guidelines for MIP cuz neither a 10-year vet with multiple All-Star appearances nor a former got dern #1 pick should be anywhere near this conversation. This is for tweeners. Scrappy players getting it out the mud to become valuable starters and or rotation players for their team. It will never make sense that Satou Sabally won MIP last year essentially for staying healthy over Jordin Canada, whose future was up in the air. I will also never be able to ask any of the voters because again, no transparency. Hopefully this changes in the near future. 

IF THIS IS THE END…IT WAS WORTH IT

The Phoenix Mercury have officially started soft launching Diana Tarusi’s farewell tour with the tagline “If this is the end” and I have mixed feelings. 

 Yes I’ve been telling her to go home and be a family woman for the better part of three years, but now that she’s actually doing it, I’m forced to reflect. 

As some may know, DT was my first favorite player. I was about 10 years old when I first discovered UConn women’s basketball in the early 2000s and was amazed at what I saw. They were fundamental but had enough flash to hold my prepubescent attention. This is where DT came in. She had such a braggadocious style to her game that made me follow her to the W. She was gonna make you feel her whether it be with her silky smooth midrange jumper or the trash she talked afterwards. This type of female bravado appealed to a little girl that was holding her own at the time against the boys on the playground as she learned the game.

Fast forward to last year as DT shut her doubters (me) up and put on an electric performance to score her 10,000th point and I was just as impressed by her then as I was as a kid. 

I can admit the hate took over in my old age, BUT it will never overshadow the appreciation I have for Diana Taurasi and what she’s meant to the game. So if this is the end, it’s been a fun ride.