The common factor between Minnesota Lynx teams is Cheryl Reeve — Jordin Canada talks Atlanta Dream
The IX: Basketball Wednesday with Howard Megdal, Sept. 18, 2024
Happy Basketball Wednesday, presented by The BIG EAST Conference. Here in 2024, when so much WNBA history is being discussed, let us not lose sight of what Cheryl Reeve has a real chance of achieving: a fifth WNBA title with the Minnesota Lynx, which would be more than any other WNBA team, and the first head coach to win a WNBA title and Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year. I’m not typically a “why aren’t more people talking about X” guy — talk about whatever you want, as far as I’m concerned — but I am truly puzzled why more people aren’t talking about this.
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Basketball Wednesday
The WNBA title is no sure thing, to put it mildly, and the Lynx will not even be the top seed in the 2024 playoffs, after the New York Liberty won Tuesday night to clinch home court throughout the playoffs. Still, that status feels less significant, coming just 48 hours or so after the Lynx marched into Barclays Center, thoroughly dominated New York for three quarters, and held on to win, 88-79 on Sunday afternoon.
Two days later, the Lynx defeated the Sun, 78-76, notching a victory against the only team they’d yet to beat, and did so in a particularly 2024 Lynx way. Following a pair of timeouts, one play call went to Napheesa Collier, who finished at the rim to put Minnesota ahead. After Connecticut countered, the Lynx found Collier again, who passed up the contested shot and instead sent the ball out to Bridget Carleton beyond the three-point line. Carleton, whom the Lynx have spent years trying to build her confidence to match her efficiency, did not hesitate and knocked down the winning three.
Carleton entered 2024 a career 36.5% shooter from deep, but on only 2.2 attempts per game. In her first 18 games of 2024, she increased those numbers to 43.2% and 4.5 attempts per game. Pretty impressive! And then she went and improved again, to 45.8% and 5.9 attempts per game over her next 20 games. The only player with a higher effective field goal percentage this season is Jonquel Jones.
Carleton is playing the best basketball of her career, as is Collier, and to a certain extent, that makes sense, given their ages and a typical basketball career arc. But so is Kayla McBride, and Courtney Williams, and Alanna Smith, and Cecilia Zandalasini — at a certain point, it isn’t just a confluence of luck, but something more systemic.
“If you look at the season, you beat a team like New York, and I’ve said this before, you know, that’s a super team,” Reeve said after Sunday’s win. “And we’re not a super team, we’re a collective. And, you know, nobody gets that excited about our players, other than Phee… they believe in each other, they believe in our collective. And there’s more than one way to be successful. You can be a super team, or you can win collectively. And I love that. That’s the two best teams to show there’s different ways to do this thing.”
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This is a collective, a group of collectives, in fact, with Reeve central to all of them. It’s a group of players put together by a front office overstuffed with talent, led by Reeve and general manager Clare Duwelius. It’s a coaching staff — all women, poignant to see given how the prevailing attitudes in the WNBA back when Reeve was an assistant herself likely delayed her ascension to a head coaching role — with Katie Smith and Rebekkah Brunson, two of the greatest players in Lynx history, along with Elaine Powell, who played for Reeve with the Detroit Shock.
Here’s the thing, though: Reeve won four WNBA titles with the super team model, the five now-retired numbers in the Target Center rafters, and now she’s on the cusp of doing the same thing with a collective, as she put it. But the results are largely the same. That 2017 team led the WNBA in defensive efficiency and 3-point accuracy, and so does this 2024 team, the entire roster turned over in the meantime. That team had a knack for taking away the most vital weapon of its opponents, and this one does the same thing when it is successful, which is most of the time.
Reeve shied away from comparing the 2024 team to the 2010s super teams, pointing out that the league is very different, and this is true. It’s different and it’s harder than ever. Reeve’s success speaks to an even greater degree to how impressive this is, that a four-time WNBA champion decided to rebuild her team and do it in a different way, beefing up the team’s analytics staff, changing everything from play style to how to add personnel. Some of it was the result of top free agents picking other destinations, forcing further creativity to reach the same peak. None of it, though, has prevented the Lynx from returning to the elite of the WNBA. And for all her evolution, the constant in that pursuit is Reeve.
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As we all know, it is convenient for teams to find some way to perceive slights, so the Lynx playing as well as they have is ruining that perception, at least among front offices, where my informal survey of about a dozen WNBA team executives yielded a near 50-50 split between those who think the Lynx will win it all and those who remain Liberty believers. A handful of respondents simply see the two as co-favorites.
“I always pick the team with the best players in the playoffs so I will say New York,” one executive texted. “But it’s against everything I’m seeing because Minnesota is the best team in the league right now.”
Another texted simply of Minnesota, “Great offense, best defense in league, best coach.”
Still, there was plenty of support for the Liberty, due to their stars, their depth, and a coach with a championship pedigree of her own in Sandy Brondello as well. No one thinks this is obvious in either direction. But the fact that the gap is so small between these two teams is an incredible reflection on Reeve and the collective she’s cultivated in Minnesota.
The best players do usually win in the playoffs. But the coach with the most playoff wins in WNBA history with 42, who also happened to serve as the top assistant for a significant number of those won by Bill Laimbeer, the second-most prolific playoff coach in league history — is going to have something to say about it as well.
That’s not just a great season. That’s historic.
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Written by Howard Megdal
Howard is the founder of The Next and editor-in-chief.
