Connecticut’s Rocky Season

This post is a part of WNBA Week+.  During this stretch, I will release several blog posts related to the WNBA, including news stories, player discussions, and teams’ seasons.

 

If you have read my previous WNBA posts, you probably know that I love the Connecticut Sun.  While I started paying attention to the WNBA a little bit when I was in grad school in 2017 (I turned on Game 2 of the WNBA Finals while flipping through channels and was blown away by how exciting the game was).  Unfortunately, I found it a little tough to watch a bunch of the games for the next couple years, which was pretty sad given how much fun the games were.  I didn’t really become a huge fan of the sport until 2020 when I watched some of the games in The Bubble and was hooked.  It was natural for me to root for my home state team, which was Connecticut, so I was spoiled in not watching the team for their suffering leading up to their playoff runs from 2017-2024 and their 6 straight semifinals from 2019-2024.  I knew that this year was going to be rough when their entire starting lineup from last season was no longer with the team this season, but it has been even more difficult to watch than I was expecting.

Going into the season, I predicted that Connecticut would finish in 12^th; while I said that I thought they would be “comically bad”, I also predicted that Marina Mabrey would be good enough to shoot them into a few more wins that Washington (I’m still stunned by just how much better Washington has been that I expected).  I think it’s safe to say that I was a little wrong about how Mabrey would do, as she is having arguably the worst season since her rookie year.  I think a big part of this is because the spacing is so bad, and Mabrey has made it clear that she isn’t a great option when there is so little offensive talent (while last year’s Connecticut team had poor spacing and shooting, the team was at least full of players who were talented on offense).  First-time WNBA coach Rachid Meziane struggled with the offensive identity all season (to his credit, I felt like the players that he ended up with didn’t allow for much creativity on that end), and bailed on the idea of Mabrey as the main shot creator almost immediately in favor of 36-year-old Tina Charles (that’s not to say that Charles is bad, but that she is best suited as a role player for a playoff team).  The result has been that their offense is the worst in the league, as they have the worst 3P% and 2P%, something that you don’t usually see.  To Meziane’s credit, he has had most of his success offensively in the past with more of a spread offense than he can create in Connecticut due to lack of talent to do that.  That said, it has been as atrocious to watch as their record has been.  On top of that, the defense hasn’t been good.  While I think this is due to lack of experience from their most athletic players, they have allowed the highest 2P% while also allowing the fourth highest 3P%.  Obviously that isn’t ideal, even while they have forced a lot of turnovers.

To add insult to injury, Connecticut does not own their first round pick this year; that was one of the assets included in the Marina Mabrey trade.  While the pick was most likely to be at the bottom of the lottery, it still will be a top-5 pick.  While I’m not quite sure that there’s a clear-cut star as Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers, or JuJu Watkins when she enters the draft, there is still a fun top-5 that could include Lauren Betts, Azzi Fudd (who I would love with the Sun), Olivia Miles, Flau’Jae Johnson (she might not be how Connecticut has built over the last few years in terms of offensive game, I think her explosion would have been a nice fit), and Ta’Niya Latson.  That just makes me wonder if there was any game plan last year when trading for Mabrey; while she was a great fit last season, the price was steep for a role player on a team that was clearly not going to win the championship (even though they finished third last year, I thought there was a clear gulf between them and the top-2 of New York and Minnesota).  On top of that, Mabrey’s struggles made it pretty much impossible to trade her at the deadline since there wouldn’t have been an offer that would have been worthwhile.

Additionally, the team was announced to be sold and would be relocated to Boston.  There was a slight issue with the announcement though:  nobody outside of the buyer and the owners of the Sun had approved the sale, let alone the relocation.  For those who don’t know, each league has a process for a sale and relocation; typically, leagues require the board of governors to approve any sale and relocation (the WNBA uses this process).  Needless to say, it makes sense for the WNBA to not want to relocate a team to a major market since the league and stakeholders could get more money from an expansion team.  Since then, the sale basically died because commissioner Cathy Engelbert didn’t bring it to the WNBA (which I wasn’t shocked by, especially since I could see other individuals willing to make similar bids now that the bid came out).  While there is reportedly a competing bid to move the team to Hartford, the WNBA has expressed interest in buying the team as well, likely to be able to relocate the team wherever they like.  With the report of the sale and then it falling apart, it just felt like an additional mess that the franchise was in.

Despite all of this misery, there are glimmers of hope.  They have multiple young players who look promising, which wasn’t something I had expected going into the year.  Saniya Rivers has already looked like an elite defender as a rookie while also showing glimpses as a playmaker, which could help her on offense while she struggles as a shooter and finisher; in my opinion, she has clearly been an All-Rookie player and could make a case to be an All-Defensive player.  Leïla Lacan joined the team late due to international commitments but already looks like a good finisher and playmaker while showing a lot of potential and progress as a defender; had she played the whole season, she could have been in contention for an All-Rookie spot.  While I question the upside of their young bigs, I expect that Olivia Nelson-Ododa, Aaliyah Edwards, and Aneesah Morrow all could end up having a role on a competitive team.  While Nelson-Ododa hasn’t been as good offensively as I expected she would be this year, she has been a good defender who looks like she could be a starting-level center.  Morrow has struggled scoring but has been an awesome rebounder who has shown defensive glimpses.  While Edwards has been disappointing in her young career (I thought she was more WNBA-ready than she turned out to be), there have been glimpses of what she could be, especially on defense.  Additionally, they have played great recently, as they have gone 6-8 after starting the season 3-20.  While a big part of this has been due to the improvement of the young player, Tina Charles has been on an absolute tear over the stretch.  While the schedule wasn’t necessarily the hardest in this stretch, they have still played very well together while looking significantly better.  No matter where the team is and no matter what happens this offseason (once a CBA gets approved, there could be a ton of player movement), Connecticut does have a bright future with their young players, no matter how atrocious the season has been to watch at times this year.

 

What do you think of the Connecticut Sun?  Has anyone else been watching them, or am I the only sick one?  Let me know in the comments!