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    Breanna Stewart Sets W.N.B.A. Points Record

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    She has scored more points this season than anyone else in W.N.B.A. history, but had more games to do it.Breanna Stewart of the Liberty has now scored more points than any other player in a single season in W.N.B.A. history. But is she really the league’s best scorer ever? It depends on how you look at it.Stewart scored 40 points in a 94-93 victory at the Dallas Wings on Tuesday night. That took her to 885 points for a season, more than any other W.N.B.A. player in history.But she has benefited from the new 40-game schedule, which was introduced this season. For most of its history, the league played 34 games.Diana Taurasi, whose record Stewart broke, scored 860 points in 2006, the third season in her long career with the Phoenix Mercury. But she did it in 34 games, for a scoring average of 25.3 points per game. Stewart took 38 games to reach her total, giving her a 23.3-per-game average.For Stewart to match Taurasi’s scoring average record, assuming she plays both of the remaining games on the Liberty’s schedule, she would need to average more than 60 points a game, a feat beyond even her skills, one would think.“I have this back-and-forth feeling with the scoring record, because any time I’m in the same limelight as D, it’s amazing, just because of what she’s done in her career and what she continues to do,” Stewart said after the game.“But obviously, it’s more games. More games is more points. As we have 40-game seasons, and we continue to build off that, there’s going to be a lot of records that are broken.”Stewart is not the only one racking up the points this season. Jewell Loyd of the Seattle Storm has 852 with three games to play. A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces has 846 with two games to play. Both should also sail past Taurasi’s mark, and there is no guarantee Stewart will even hold the record by season’s end.Longer season or not, it has been a boom year for individual scoring in the W.N.B.A. Stewart’s game on Tuesday was the 13th time this season a player had scored 40 or more points; last season, nobody did it. Wilson had a 53-point game last month, tying the league’s single-game scoring record.Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun has also been taking advantage of the longer schedule. On Tuesday night, she broke the single-season assist record with 304, topping Courtney Vandersloot’s 300 for the Chicago Sky in 2019. Thomas also has 375 rebounds, fourth on the single-season list with two games to play.It’s all a bit reminiscent of Roger Maris’s home run chase in 1961. As Maris approached Babe Ruth’s record of 60 home runs in a season, Ford Frick, who was the baseball commissioner, suggested Maris’s record could receive a “distinctive mark” in the record book, unless Maris reached 60 in 154 games, the traditional length of a season. The American League had lengthened its season to 162 games in 1961.Maris had 59 homers at the 154-game mark, and hit his 61st, breaking Ruth’s record, in the Yankees’ final regular-season game. As a result, many fans thought of Maris’s record as having an asterisk, although one was never actually applied officially.Stewart’s record is the latest accomplishment in a glittering basketball career. A 6-foot-4 forward, she won four national championships in four years at UConn and was the N.C.A.A. tournament’s most outstanding player each year. She had two titles in her six seasons with Seattle, won the league M.V.P. in 2018, and may do so again this season after signing with the Liberty as a free agent. She also has two Olympic gold medals.Stewart benefited from the longer schedule. But points do not score themselves. And for now, she has more of them in a W.N.B.A. season than anyone else. More

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      W.N.B.A. Semifinals Check-In: Can’t. Stop. Candace. Parker.

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      Both semifinals series are tied, 1-1. The Las Vegas Aces and Seattle Storm have shown offensive power, while the Connecticut Sun and Chicago Sky dig in on defense.As Chicago Sky guard Kahleah Copper and Connecticut Sun guard Courtney Williams tussled over the basketball in Game 1 of their W.N.B.A. semifinal series, Sky forward Candace Parker walked down the court, waving her hands in the air to ignite the Chicago crowd. The moment reflected how physical the series had been, and it was reminder of the teams’ history.In 2021, the sixth-seeded Sky beat the top-seeded Sun in the semifinals en route to winning the championship, a title that has that has eluded the Sun. If the Sky win the title this season, they will be the first team to repeat since the Los Angeles Sparks in 2001-2. After the Sky’s 85-77 victory in Game 2, the best-of-five series is tied at one game apiece.Sky forward Azurá Stevens said the series is “just about who wants it more, because they have beef with us from last year.”On the other side of the bracket, the Las Vegas Aces and Seattle Storm are also tied at 1-1. The series features some of the most recognizable names in the league and seven former No. 1 overall draft picks: Sue Bird (2002), Tina Charles (2010), Jewell Loyd (2015) and Breanna Stewart (2016) for Seattle; and Kelsey Plum (2017), A’ja Wilson (2018) and Jackie Young (2019) for Las Vegas.This is a rematch of the 2020 W.N.B.A. finals, in which the Storm swept the Aces and Stewart was named the most valuable player of the series. Stewart also won the award after leading the Storm to the title in 2018. If Seattle wins its fifth championship this year, it will break a tie with the Minnesota Lynx and Houston Comets for the most in W.N.B.A history. The Aces are still looking for their first title.Game 3 in each series is Sunday. Here is a look at how the teams have fared so far.No. 1 Las Vegas Aces vs. No. 4 Seattle StormChelsea Gray has been the Las Vegas Aces’ leading scorer against the Seattle Storm.Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesThe Aces were the best offensive team in the W.N.B.A. this year. They led the league in points per game (90.4) and offensive efficiency (109.6). Four starters averaged at least 10 points per game: Plum (20.2), Wilson (19.5), Young (15.9) and Chelsea Gray (13.7).Through the first two games of the series against the Storm, Gray has arguably been the Aces’ most important player, managing the offense and scoring, and making pinpoint passes at crucial moments. She’s leading the team in points (21) and assists (6) per game during the playoffs.But Las Vegas has struggled in the first quarter.In Game 2, the Aces matched the Storm almost point-for-point in the first seven minutes and got out to a 16-13 lead. Then a 3 by Seattle’s Stephanie Talbot tied the game and sparked a 10-0 run that pushed the Storm toward a seven-point advantage going into the second quarter. The first quarter of Game 1 was similar, as the Aces gave up 26 points and trailed by 11 at the end of the period.Stewart and Loyd combined for 50 points on 52.8 percent shooting in Seattle’s Game 1 win. Stewart dominated most of the game, and Loyd scored 10 of the Storm’s final 12 points and assisted on the other basket. Her most impressive basketball of that tear came with just over 30 seconds remaining in the game, with the Storm holding a 1-point lead and Wilson — the defensive player of the year — guarding her at the 3-point line. Loyd crossed from her right to left hand before stepping back and knocking down a long 2-pointer over Wilson’s outstretched arms.But Loyd struggled in the Game 2 loss.Loyd finished 2 of 10 from the field and 0 for 3 from the 3-point line for just 8 points. While Stewart tallied 32 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists, the only other Storm player in double figures was Charles, who scored 17 points on 17 shot attempts. The good sign for the Storm is that even with Loyd’s struggles, they were in the game until the end.No. 2 Chicago Sky vs. No. 3 Connecticut SunJonquel Jones has helped the Connecticut Sun outrebound the Sky.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesThe Sky have struggled in Game 1s this postseason, losing both at home. The Sun benefited from that in their semifinal series, but they have felt the pain of playing against Parker.The Sun had the second-best defensive rating in the league in the regular season (96.3), and they held the Sky to their lowest point total of the season in their 68-63 Game 1 victory. But Parker still had an astounding stat line: 19 points, 18 rebounds, 6 blocks, 5 assists and 4 steals. All of that and she had just 2 turnovers.Parker is doing almost everything for the Sky on the floor. She had another impressive stat line in Game 2 with 22 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 blocks in the win. She also hit 3 of 4 3-pointers.The most challenging part about playing the Sky is that on any given night, a different player, or multiple players, could go for 20 points. The stat line doesn’t show Parker’s effectiveness in keeping the Sky’s offensive churning: After rebounds, she often looks ahead to Copper, who is often already behind the defense for a score.The Sky’s roster is among the best in the W.N.B.A., and they breezed to a franchise-best 26 wins because of it. Still, the Sun’s physical frontcourt, with Jonquel Jones (6-foot-6), DeWanna Bonner (6-foot-4), Brionna Jones (6-foot-3) and Alyssa Thomas (6-foot-2), has outrebounded the Sky in the series, 86-65. The rebounding advantage didn’t hinder the Sky from picking up a win in Game 2 and nearly securing Game 1, when Parker had 18 rebounds. But they will need a group effort to neutralize the Sun’s size. More

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      The W.N.B.A.'s Seattle Storm Are Winners. The City Should Fully Embrace Them

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      Inside the arena, Seattle Storm fans bring the passion. Outside, the city has yet to fully embrace a team that has won four W.N.B.A. championships.SEATTLE — What do I have to do around here to buy a cap that reps the best team in women’s basketball?That’s what I was thinking last week as I walked the streets of downtown Seattle, home of the W.N.B.A. champions, the Storm.In sports paraphernalia shops, I hunted for a green-and-gold Storm cap, a T-shirt, or maybe a replica of the team’s new black jerseys, anything that would show off my love for one of the premier teams in sports.What I found were stores filled with Seahawks, Mariners and Washington Huskies swag. I saw eager customers buying caps affixed with the ice blue “S” that represents the Kraken, the new N.H.L. team in town. The Kraken’s first game isn’t until next month.Each time I asked for Storm merchandise, I was met with bewilderment and surprise. One salesperson suggested Storm gear would surely sit untouched because of the demand for Russell Wilson jerseys. Another told me she could sell me a Storm bumper sticker, but she wasn’t sure where it was.Disappointed, I drove to a nearby suburb and found a sporting goods store in a mall. Here my question was answered with this:“Who are the Storm?”A series of championships has still not generated broad support outside core fans.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesIn their 21 years of existence, the Storm have been remarkably consistent. They hold four W.N.B.A. titles. The first came in 2004. The last in 2020. As the league heads into this season’s playoffs, which start this week, they are once again among its top four teams and stand a good chance of repeating as champions.Leading the reigning champions are three athletes of remarkable distinction. Jewell Loyd is an offensive spark plug with a game fashioned after Kobe Bryant, who was one of her mentors. Breanna Stewart, the league M.V.P. in 2018, is possibly the best player in the women’s game. Sue Bird, one of her sport’s few breakout stars, has spent her entire professional career in Seattle.These three women helped the United States win the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. At the opening ceremony, Bird carried the American flag in the parade of athletes.That’s who the Storm are.And yet in the stores I visited last week and on the streets of a city that touts itself as deeply progressive, I saw nothing to indicate that Seattle has a W.N.B.A. team, let alone passion for one.Merchandise is a metaphor, a signpost of something else: cultural capital. They don’t call all those hats, shirts, jerseys and sweatshirts “swag” for nothing, and the prevalence of it — or, in this case, the lack of it — speaks to something profound.The signal sent when gear is so hard to find and so rarely seen? Women remain an afterthought, which hits especially hard for a team sport played predominantly by Black women.The players notice.“You don’t see us repped as much as we should be,” Loyd told me, still sweating after a hard practice last week. “It is almost impossible to find a jersey. We are like a hidden gem. To put all of this work into something and we are not seen, what else do we have to do? We’ve won championships here and brought value to our city, and yet you can’t find a jersey?”Storm guard Jewell Loyd is one of the team’s stars.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesThere is nuance to this story, though. True, in its 25th year, the W.N.B.A continues to struggle for hearts and minds. But after last season, when the league burnished its reputation for excellence and solidified itself as a leader in the fight for social justice, it is also making inroads.While viewership for most sports is declining in an era of cable television cord-cutting, the W.N.B.A.’s national broadcast ratings are on the rise. Player salaries are climbing, too, and several of the league’s stars feature in national advertising campaigns for large corporations. Eight players signed deals recently to represent Nike’s Jordan Brand, a number once unthinkable. In a first, one enduring star, the Chicago Sky’s Candace Parker, fronts the popular NBA 2K video game.The league has also successfully courted backing from companies such as Google, Facebook, AT&T, Nike and Deloitte, the professional services firm helmed by Cathy Engelbert before she moved to the W.N.B.A. in 2019 to serve as its commissioner.When I interviewed her last week, Engelbert spoke of the need to change and amplify the league’s narrative. She hailed the devoted, diverse, youthful and socially progressive fan base. She wants the W.N.B.A. valued in new ways that go beyond old metrics like Nielsen ratings.When I mentioned I rarely saw Storm gear in Seattle, my hometown, she hardly seemed surprised.“We need to do better” at marketing and telling the league’s story, she said. If that happens, sales of merchandise will rise, along with overall popularity. “I mean, everyone should know who Sue Bird is,” she said. “She happens to be one of our household names, but we don’t have enough of them.”The commissioner also singled out the importance of selling the game by highlighting individual stars and the intense rivalries among players and teams, akin to how the N.B.A. grew when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird came to that league.The Storm’s Sue Bird is one of the sport’s best-known celebrities.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesOne such rivalry, between the Storm and the Phoenix Mercury, was on full display on Friday night.It was Seattle’s final regular-season game. Both teams had qualified for the playoffs, but much was on the line, including bragging rights between two organizations that have a history of epic clashes. More important, the winner would also get to skip the postseason’s first round.At that game — played 30 miles north of Seattle because the team’s typical arena is being renovated — I finally found rabid fans wearing their Storm swag. Caps, T-shirts, socks, face masks, sweatbands. A few fans donned green-and-gold shoes with player autographs. Some wore the uniforms of Bird, Loyd and Stewart from the Olympic team.Before 6,000 spectators instead of the 2,000 typically at the Storm’s temporary home, the teams put on a showcase of flowing, fast-paced basketball. Despite being without Stewart, who is nursing a foot injury, Seattle came out firing. Loyd hit a barrage of midrange jump shots and deep 3-pointers. On her way to a career-high 37 points, she scored 22 in the first quarter.The Storm won, 94-85, delighting a boisterous, fun-loving crowd. It was easy to feel the team’s intensity and to see how its firm base of loyal and diverse fans powered the W.N.B.A.But outside of such fans, away from its arenas, the league mirrors society and its inequities. All you need to do is walk the streets of Seattle and shop for a Storm cap to see that. More

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      Jewell Loyd Is in the Gym, Building Her Game and a Community

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      WNBA Champion Jewell Loyd at The Warehouse outside of Chicago.Credit…Nolis Anderson for The New York TimesSkip to contentSkip to site indexJewell Loyd Is in the Gym, Building Her Game and a CommunityA trying year, on and off the court, helped Loyd finally embrace herself as an elite Black female athlete.WNBA Champion Jewell Loyd at The Warehouse outside of Chicago.Credit…Nolis Anderson for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyFeb. 27, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETThe Warehouse gym is a little off the beaten track, plopped south of an interstate highway, behind a hidden road.“You have to be kind of a real O.G. baller to know where it is,” Jewell Loyd said.Loyd, fresh off a second W.N.B.A. championship with the Seattle Storm, is that type of baller.The gym, in Northbrook, Ill., hosts one of the many courts where Loyd honed the game that earned her the nickname “Gold Mamba” from Kobe Bryant. It’s home to the courts where, years earlier, she and her brother, Jarryd Loyd, witnessed future pros like Dee Brown and Iman Shumpert nurturing their skills during lively pickup games and lengthy training sessions.Over the years, as the siblings journeyed and established themselves professionally, the Warehouse loosened its grip as a community beacon. “The gym lost its importance, in our opinion, to the community, I would say probably a decade ago,” said Jarryd, who played in college at Valparaiso before embarking on an overseas professional career.The siblings had been looking into buying a gym when Jarryd received an alert on his cellphone that the Warehouse had hit the market. The pair, along with a couple of private investors, are negotiating to buy it, envisioning the space as a renewed incubator for future generations of ballers in the know.The commitment goes beyond money.“It’s a safe space,” Jewell Loyd said. “It’s really for the community. I want to make sure that people have a chance to do what I’m doing, and it starts with a dream. And if you can build that dream in a place that you get constantly reminded that you can achieve it, I think that’s the beautiful thing about the building.”Loyd is at a pivotal time in her life, after a trying year on and off the court in 2020. A few seasons back, she pinpointed this winter as an opportunity for a break from her overseas career, predicting that she would need time off after the Tokyo Olympics.The Olympics, delayed by the pandemic, haven’t happened yet. Still, the planned breather came at an ideal time: Loyd’s mentor, Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others died in a helicopter crash in January 2020. Then the W.N.B.A. played out its season in the isolation of a bubble environment in Florida, dedicating the year to Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was killed by the police in Louisville, Ky.“In the end, it wasn’t easy being in there,” Breanna Stewart, Loyd’s Seattle teammate, said of the bubble at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. “Basketball 24/7 — and we both love basketball — but when it’s all you see, and you see the same people over and over and over again, it can get very redundant.”She added: “Jewell and I are ones that love to be in the gym. And so to constantly see each other in the gym was what helped motivate us individually and then us as a team.”Seattle Storm players Breanna Stewart, Jewell Loyd and Mercedes Russell raised their team flag on the roof of the Space Needle in Seattle after winning the championship in October.Credit…Ted S. Warren/Associated PressThe finals presented Loyd with a redo. The last time Seattle had been there, when they beat the Washington Mystics in 2018, she hadn’t played poorly, but she was inconsistent. “I actually was very disappointed, even though we won a championship, in how I played,” Loyd said. “You might think that’s selfish, but knowing that I felt like I could do more than what I did.”“There were certain spots I didn’t feel like myself,” she added.In past seasons, Storm Coach Dan Hughes counseled Loyd to not be so hard on herself, that the chips wouldn’t always fall her way.Loyd started working with a life coach and a sports psychologist. She learned to visualize herself in familiar situations, to focus and breathe, to know that a jumper taken in the finals was no different from the one she had taken a million times in the solitude of a gym like the Warehouse.“The physical stuff is easy,” Loyd said. “You can always just push through, but mentally, sometimes, it’s hard to get out of your own way.”At around the same time Loyd retreated to the her league’s bubble, Phil Handy, an assistant coach with the N.B.A.’s Los Angeles Lakers, went to his. Handy had trained with Loyd and would send her video clips, while encouraging her to stay present throughout each game.“The mental part is all about understanding the work that you’ve done and then having confidence in that work,” Handy said, adding, “Mentally, you’re already locked in because you already studied for the test.”Loyd said dedicating the season to Taylor helped her to fully embrace herself as an elite Black, female athlete.“Sometimes you get distracted from it,” Loyd said. “You know it’s there. You know what it’s about. You know that other kids have been mistreated, but you don’t always necessarily speak out on it, just because you’re a kid, you don’t know any better, whatever. But it seems now where you have to speak out about it to educate our next generation.”Loyd averaged 17.8 points, 5 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game as Seattle swept its six playoff games against Minnesota and Las Vegas.Loyd had 8 points during Game 2 of the W.N.B.A. finals.Credit…Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press“She knew who she was, she knew what she stood for and she did that,” said Stewart, the M.V.P. of the finals. “She didn’t have to think about anything else, except, ‘This is what I do, and I’m Jewell Loyd.’ And that’s how she should be, because she’s one of the best players in the country and in the world.”The W.N.B.A. finals culminated with a 92-59 coronating victory over the Las Vegas Aces. Loyd dedicated her second title to Kobe and Gianna Bryant.“That’s the one time during the season where you can actually take a breath, is knowing that it’s done,” Loyd said. “It’s over. We did it. It’s such a great feeling.”Loyd returned home to Illinois. She is enrolled at DePaul University, honoring the vow she made to her family when she left Notre Dame following her junior season to declare for the 2015 draft. She comes from a family of educators. “If in fact she were to get hurt and can’t play anymore, what are you going to do?” said her mother, Gwendolyn Davis-Loyd, a retired elementary schoolteacher. “That’s always been the philosophy.”But Loyd said: “I think college isn’t for everyone, especially when you’re a creative, when you’re an artist and there’s other ways to learn. Sometimes college is very traditional, right to the book, and that doesn’t work for everybody.“So, half of me is understanding that sometimes you’ve got to do things that you don’t want to do.”Davis-Loyd chuckled that her daughter now sits on corporate boards, while still attending classes for biology and public speaking. As a child, Loyd learned that she had dyslexia; her deliberate march toward a degree reflects dogged perseverance.“There’s also part of me that it’s frustrating to go back to school and kind of do the same thing that happened, and kind of go through the college experience of working with my learning disability and doing all that stuff again,” Loyd said. “Just kind of gives me anxiety at times, too, but we’ll get through it.”In the last few months, Loyd has deepened her friendship with Nets guard Kyrie Irving, also a Bryant disciple, as they focus on philanthropic and community endeavors.“We believe that Kobe brought us together to do good work and to live out his legacy and pass it down,” Loyd said. “We want to do our best to do that as much as we can, as often as we can to help the next generation.”Loyd and Bryant embraced at the 2019 W.N.B.A. All-Star game.Credit…Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE, via Getty ImagesThose efforts include acquiring the Warehouse. Jarryd Loyd said the siblings hope to infuse technology into the gym by using data to guide shot selection and adding interactive gaming to make learning basketball’s intricacies more fun.All the while, Loyd is already spending hours training at the Warehouse, a place full of memories.“The women coming into the league have gotten better,” Loyd said. “People are actually training. People are actually building on their games. And it’s not just all technically, fundamentally sound basketball. The draft picks that come in, they’re ready to go. And even in college, you see players are getting better, handles are getting better, their shot, everything.”She added, “Everyone has to step up their game.”Jarryd critiques his sister’s game as perhaps only a big brother can, saying that she can still improve her playmaking, shooting percentage and getting to the rim.On a scale of 10? “I think really she’s still at a five to be honest,” Jarryd said. “I think she has another five gears to go in her growth as a player.”Considering Jewell Loyd has made two All-Star games, that is a scary thought for the rest of the league.“That’s really what is about,” she said. “How much can you push yourself?”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More