After a COVID-19-forced delay, the 2020 WNBA season will kick off this weekend with a pair of triple-headers split between Saturday and Sunday.
Much like its older brother league’s season resumption, the WNBA campaign is taking place in a “bubble” in Florida. However, instead of the Walt Disney World resort near Orlando, the W is opening up shop a little more than 100 miles southwest in Bradenton, Fla., at the IMG Academy athletic campus, a facility renowned for its elite training facilities in a multitude of sports, including a powerful prep basketball program.
All 12 of the league’s teams are at IMG Academy and will play a 22-game regular season schedule beginning Saturday and running up until Sept. 12. It hasn’t been announced yet, but a traditional playoff format is expected to be played sometime after the regular season in September with the season likely to wrap up in October.
Like any other professional sports league looking to start play during the midst of a global pandemic, this WNBA season promises to be one unlike any other before.
Here’s a look at four storylines to watch for as this “wubble” season is about to kick off.
Social justice and the Kelly Loeffler problem
The WNBA says it will be dedicating this season to social justice.
The league and Players’ Association combined to launch a new platform called “The Justice Movement,” which aims to amplify players’ voices. Additionally, like in the NBA, the “Black Lives Matter” slogan will be prominently displayed on the court in games and the phrase “Say Her Name” will be on the back of player jerseys during the opening weekend in an effort to seek justice for women and girls such as Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor and Vanessa Guillen.
This all should be commended and is indicative of the kind of progressive league the WNBA aims to be.
But the message the league appears to want to convey is also being directly contradicted by one of its team’s owners.
U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler, a political ally of President Donald Trump, is the co-owner of the Atlanta Dream and has been critical of the WNBA’s support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Shortly after the WNBA issued their statement about their plan to honour Black Lives Matter, Loeffler wrote WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert a letter condemning the league’s decision.
“I adamantly oppose the Black Lives Matter political movement, which has advocated for the defunding of police, called for the removal of Jesus from churches and the disruption of the nuclear family structure, harbored anti-Semitic views, and promoted violence and destruction across the country,” Loeffler reportedly wrote.
These comments from Loeffler were met with harsh criticism from players around the league, with calls for Engelbert to strip Loeffler of her ownership.
Engelbert issued a statement in response reproaching Loeffler’s comments saying the Senator “has not served as a Governor of the Atlanta Dream since October 2019 and is no longer involved in the day-to-day business of the team.”
However, despite these words from Engelbert, the WNBA still won’t force Loeffler to sell her ownership stake in the league, the commissioner confirmed herself in an interview with CNN.
And further complicating matters, just on Wednesday, Loeffler, in an interview with ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, doubled down on the comments she reportedly made in her letter to Engelbert.
“I think a lot of people feel that they may not have a place,” Loeffler said in regards to the WNBA’s support of Black Lives Matter. “They may feel excluded from this sport and other sports that make them feel like American values aren’t at the core of what we’re doing here.”
This is a real problem for the WNBA. As a league, it can’t be espousing the virtues of social and racial justice while one of its owners is pushing the polar opposite to its message.
How the league navigates this situation moving forward will be very interesting to monitor.
Stewie’s back
Look out WNBA, because the best player in the world is back and healthy again.
After being forced to miss the entire 2019 season with a torn Achilles suffered while playing for Russian club Dynamo Kursk in the EuroLeague Women final, 2016 No. 1-overall pick and rookie of the year, two-time all-star, 2018 MVP, Finals MVP and champion Breanna Stewart is back at full strength and looks primed for even more hardware.
With Stewart back in the fold, the Seattle Storm will once again be considered a championship front-runner as much of the core that won it all in 2018 remain on the team, including the return of veteran legend Sue Bird, who also missed all of 2019 because of injury.
Tension between Della Donne, Mystics
Elena Delle Donne, last season’s MVP, is with her defending WNBA champion Washington Mystics teammates at IMG Academy, but there’s a good chance she won’t play a single game.
And according to Delle Donne, she probably shouldn’t even be in Bradenton to begin with.
The six-time all-star was denied a medical exemption for the season by the WNBA, despite being in an ongoing battle with Lyme disease.
“I take 64 pills a day,” Delle Donne wrote in a Players’ Tribune piece, opening up about her fight with the disease.
The denial from the league meant Delle Donne’s salary would’ve been in jeopardy had she not played. As a compromise, ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel reports, the Mystics agreed to pay Delle Donne her full salary even if she chooses to sit out each game this season.
This still doesn’t seem to be enough, however, as, according to Erin Kane, Delle Donne’s agent, the Washington star doesn’t feel comfortable because she believes she’s more at-risk to contract COVID-19 because of her pre-existing condition.
“We’re trying to figure out with the team what the parameters are because Elena doesn’t want to go to the facility full-stop or work out somewhere else indoors where there’s someone else around because she feels like that’s risky,” Kane told Voepel. “None of that has been finalized. Elena is trying to mentally sort through this, and all of it is happening in pretty short order.”
Canadian content
For fans of Canadian hoops, there are four Canucks to keep an eye on in the WNBA: Natalie Achonwa of the Indiana Fever, Kayla Alexander and Bridget Carleton from the Minnesota Lynx and New York Liberty star Kia Nurse.
All four women are Canadian national team fixtures and would have been in Tokyo getting set to enter Olympic Stadium with the rest of Team Canada this week had COVID-19 not changed those plans. Alas, it wasn’t to be and they’ll have to wait one year for their turn at Olympic glory again.
Of this quartet, the most recognizable name is probably Nurse, who coming into her third season in the league has already earned an all-star nod and looks to be treading the path towards true superstardom.
In order to reach that plateau she’ll need to reach the playoffs, however, and even though the Liberty aren’t expected to make much noise this season, with 2020 No. 1-overall pick Sabrina Ionescu — a player with lofty Zion Williamson-like expectations cast upon her – New York could surprise, particularly if Nurse can take that next step.
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