Takeaways from WNBA opening weekend, and looking ahead to what’s next

Here’s what you missed from every WNBA team’s first game of the season.

The opening weekend of the 2020 WNBA season was a resounding success. Over 500,000 people watched the ABC tip-off on Saturday afternoon, featuring the rival Phoenix Mercury and Los Angeles. The league was able to turn attention to the Say Her Name movement and the ongoing Breonna Taylor case in Louisville. Players wore Taylor’s name on the back of their jerseys and observed a 26-second moment of silence to honor the young woman’s age when she was killed by Louisville police. The games lived up to the hype, too.

Each of the league’s 12 teams played across opening weekend, and while the title favorite Seattle Storm and fellow contenders like the Sparks and Chicago Sky stepped up, we may have to readjust expectations for a few franchises.

Here’s what we learned from the first six games of the WNBA, and what to watch going forward:

WNBA: Institutional knowledge outweighs star power to start

If pro basketball had been played in a bubble a decade ago, you’d have expected the San Antonio Spurs to be able to block out the distractions of pandemic basketball and relentlessly execute. During the middle of last decade, the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx were the dynasty to bet on. Rosters have been shuffled and neither league has a trusty dynasty, but several standouts from 2019 and before picked up where they left off to start the 2020 season.

The Sparks’ front court of Candace Parker and Nneka Ogwumike features two MVPs who have played together since 2012. Los Angeles has a system that works, with floor-spacers on the wing and two genius bigs who can play-make for others or create shots for themselves. There may not be a better cutting big in the league than Ogwumike, and Parker knows where to find her. Add in point guard Chelsea Gray, who joined this core in 2015, and the level of ESP going on for the Sparks is unfair.

On Saturday, the two starting bigs combined for 34 points on just 18 shot attempts. Gray’s seven assists put the Sparks’ inside scorers in position to succeed, and that freed 3-and-D role players like Brittney Sykes and Seimone Augustus for easy looks across the court.

Altogether, Los Angeles shot 56 percent from the field and outscored Phoenix by 23 in the third period. In coach Derek Fisher’s second season, the Sparks have a firm identity that will help them in the “Wubble.”

The closest thing the WNBA has to a dynasty these days is Washington. The Mystics are led by the creative and experienced head coach Mike Thibault and a system that is shepherding a more positionless style into the WNBA. But many of the players who helped them realize that system — from Natasha Cloud and LaToya Sanders to MVP Elena Delle Donne — are out this season. The other MVP they acquired to help replace the lost scoring, Tina Charles, opted out as well.

Still, the Mystics blitzed the Fever to the tune of 101-76 on Saturday night. The group shot 41.2 percent from deep and 56 percent overall, the type of unreal efficiency Washington could generate consistently en route to the best offense in league history in 2020. That’s the type of machine that can withstand the loss even of a dynamic MVP like Delle Donne.

It remains to be seen how the new-look and shorthanded Mystics hold up on defense when they face a more fearsome opponent than the young Fever, but they figure to be similarly effective on that end. The versatile Ariel Atkins and Kiara Leslie on the wing give Thibault the 3-and-D depth he loves, and as long as the bigs can protect the middle, Washington should be a top-half team again, even without Delle Donne.

The other team that has to be mentioned here is Chicago, a semifinalist in 2019 that stayed mostly intact during a busy offseason. The Sky kept three starters in place from last year as well as rotation mainstays Cheyenne Parker and Kahleah Copper (a Sixth Woman of the Year candidate who’s now starting). Chicago was down at the half to the barren Las Vegas Aces and still managed to take the game thanks to 25 assists including the game-winning 3 from Allie Quigley.

The shot was set up by a perfectly executed hammer set and a dish from Courtney Vandersloot, who has shared a backcourt with Quigley since 2013. The Sky will hope their chemistry helps absorb new starting forward Azura Stevens and rookie Ruthy Hebard, but the team’s core eight-woman rotation shouldn’t miss a beat.

Sykes and Hines-Allen keep their teams in the mix

This offseason saw the most player movement in league history, with higher salaries suddenly available thanks to a new collective bargaining agreement, as well as the constantly improving depth of the league. It meant that even teams like Los Angeles and Washington that were great last year had to replace talent to stay afloat.

Scoring guard Kristi Toliver moved from Washington to L.A., and the Sparks found themselves needing even more guard creation after an offensive collapse in the playoffs last year. They hoped to find it in Sykes, long under-appreciated in Atlanta and one of the most athletic players in the league. Sykes was the talk of training camp, and with Toliver opting out for the season, it suddenly appeared the Sparks’ hopes were hinging on someone like Sykes stepping up as a consistent two-way play-maker.

She was exactly that on Saturday evening, scoring 10 points on just five shot attempts (including two made 3s) and smacking a gimme layup out of the hands of 6-9 center Brittney Griner. Social media and SportsCenter alike were packed with Sykes highlights.

Later that night, it was another unexpected young veteran who stepped up for a potential championship contender. Myisha Hines-Allen, who has never even cracked 300 minutes in a season, made her second career start for the Mystics and completely dominated.

The Louisville product was energized by her teammates’ support as she stepped in to replace Sanders in the starting lineup as well as her empathy toward Taylor as a Louisville resident and Black woman herself.

Most interestingly, Hines-Allen made three of four 3s, giving the Mystics a surprise deep threat that will keep the space in the offense that made it so special in 2019. In fact, if Hines-Allen can keep defenses honest from behind the arc, her partnership with 2019 Final MVP Emma Meesseman in the front court could bring even more shooting to the floor than the Sanders/Delle Donne grouping that started last year.

The Fever made a silly decision to bench sophomore center Teaira McCowan against Washington, leaving Hines-Allen with a matchup that suited her better than the bruising McCowan, so teams will continue to test the new Washington front court’s ability to protect the rim. Hines-Allen is not much of a shot-blocker, and Meesseman is as close to a negative as you’ll find on the Mystics’ roster. Then again, Washington could succeed by simply outscoring everyone and not sweating the other end too much.

Are the Mercury alright?

Keep an eye on Phoenix, who laid an egg in the second half against the Sparks. With three MVP candidates on the roster and an improved cast of role players, the Mercury should be able to clean up their act with more experience on the court together. Integrating a point guard, even a great one like Skylar Diggins-Smith, takes longer than the twoish-week training camp WNBA teams had this summer.

But the Mercury’s opening-day loss had the stench of their underperforming 2019 season. It’s one thing to be sluggish or lack chemistry, it’s another to play without fight. Too often over the past two seasons, the Mercury have rolled over when it got rough. In a 22-game regular season, no one has any time to waste.