The 2018 WNBA season is playing out far from how anyone expected by the All-Star break, which is making this year one of the most memorable ever. What we thought would be another reign of the Sparks and Lynx has been far from with several middling teams from a year ago making the leap with breakout stars. Oh, and the league’s star have been more vocal than ever in an inspiring way.
7 reasons why the 2018 WNBA season is one of the best ever
As we hit the All-Star Game break, let’s digest what we’re witnessing.
Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images
This year’s been a win-win on all accounts in the “W,” and it’s been proven with the league’s 38 percent jump in viewership for the first half of the season. It’s been the most-watched season of the WNBA since 2012, according to the league.
A summer that began with Diana Taurasi nailing her 1,000th career three and simultaneously screaming motherf***er has continued with Liz Cambage breaking the single-game scoring record with a 53-point afternoon, and so much more.
Here’s what’s made the first-half of the 2018 season so special:
1. Breanna Stewart is a bonafide STAR now
The former UCONN Husky is maybe the greatest college basketball player of all-time and had tremendous expectations from the jump when she started her professional career. She was really good in her first two seasons, but now in her third year with the Seattle Storm, she’s been deadly. Stewie’s found her own.
The league’s leading scorer at 23 points per game is the frontrunner for MVP, taking her team from playoff-caliber to championship ready. It’s coming not a moment too soon with legend point guard and record-setting 11-time All-Star Sue Bird playing out the backend of her career. The pieces have all fallen in line for Seattle.
Stewie’s grabbing eight boards, dishing three assists, combining for three blocks and steals per game, shooting 37 percent from range, and been a marvel to watch. She’s 23 years old and ready to lead her team to a title!
2. A’ja Wilson is one of the best rookies WE’VE EVER SEEN
The WNBA’s showing age matters less and less, as 21-year-old A’ja Wilson earned an All-Star nod as a rookie. Her immediate impact — along with scoring sidekick and All-Star game teammate Kayla McBride’s — has turned last year’s worst team into a potential playoff one. Wilson’s proven why she went No. 1 overall and why it wasn’t a hard choice for the Las Vegas Aces.
Beating opponents in the triple-threat, NOBODY has been able to hold Wilson consistently. She’s posting 20 points per game with nine rebounds, three assists and two blocks. The future of the W is here already.
3. Liz Cambage is BACK, and literally breaking records
Cambage took four years off from the WNBA as she competed in China and Australia, but now, back in the W, she’s the most intimidating inside-out presence in the league. A 6’8 big who can shoot, back down in the post and defend, Cambage is something else.
She showed exactly that in a mid-July game against the Liberty when she dropped 53 points on 17-of-22 shooting, including 4-of-5 from deep, breaking a WNBA record. Don’t forget the W plays 40-minute games.
4. The WNBA’s stars are doing incredible things off the court too
On top of the wild travel schedule, practices, games and other appearances required by the WNBA’s talents, several have stepped outside the box to prepare for what’s next after basketball.
Hall of Famer-to be Lindsay Whalen begun the season as not only the Lynx starting point guard in another championship-contending season, but as the head coach of the Minnesota Golden Gophers women’s basketball team — her alma mater. If those two careers seem impossible to balance at the same time, you’ve never met Whalen.
After a game in Los Angeles, Mystics point guard and All-Star Kristi Toliver laid the groundwork for a potential coaching career too, taking a red-eye to Las Vegas to coach a Wizards Summer League game.
Chiney Owgumike’s schedule as an ESPN broadcaster AND the star of the Connecticut Sun doesn’t even make sense. She detailed one of her many trips this season where she drove to Boston from Connecticut to work part of a Celtics playoff game before driving back to play her own game the following night.
The league’s in the hands of multi-talented stars!
5. Maya Moore’s “Wings” poster was iconic
Moore, the most popular WNBA player by fans’ All-Star votes, posed with her arms spread like Michael Jordan’s famous picture, and it was displayed in Minneapolis. It was brilliant.
A young fan took a picture in front of it, mimicking her idol, and it went viral.
This photo was the perfect example of what the WNBA’s stars mean to young fans.
6. Players are finding their voice in the fight against the wage gap
Several of the league’s stars have been outspoken about their disappointment with the league’s current collective bargaining agreement and how little of the WNBA’s revenue ends up in their pockets.
Aces point guard Kelsey Plum sent a fiery tweet clarifying what the WNBA’s talents are asking for: a bigger cut of the pie, not salaries equivalent to the NBA’s. Plum isn’t alone either, Wilson has joined as has Cambage and more.
Players are upset, and they aren’t holding back. That’s been admirable.
7. Diana Taurasi 3’s and T’s mentality is still going
The most prolific three-point shooter, and possibly the most prolific trash-talker in the W’s history is as good at both in her age-36 season. The league is always better when it’s in Taurasi’s hands.
She’s already been suspended for reaching seven technical fouls, and who can forget the classic mother-f bomb when she drained three-pointer No. 1000.
What’s been so wild about Taurasi’s season hasn’t even been her vocabulary, it’s that she’s on pace to make a career-high percentage of her three-point shots at 40 percent. She’s also shooting a career-best 94 percent from the free-throw line and tying a career-best in assists with five per game.
She’s as Diana Taurasi as ever.
