Hey…that rhymed.
Approximately halfway through the season, the WNBA’s pundit class is handing out its midseason awards with the All-Star Game looming.
In its first season playing in Las Vegas, the Aces are in the running for possibly two of those awards. A’ja Wilson has played not only like the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year, but as the W’s next great player.
But even with Wilson, this was expected still to be a rebuilding year for the Aces. After all, this was formerly a San Antonio Stars team that drafted Kelsey Plum – one of the greatest collegiate players ever – and struggled in her first season.
The Stars finished 8-26 last year. Roughly midway through the season, the Aces have already surpassed their win output from 2017 with a 10-13 record as of this writing. If the postseason began today, they would be two and a half games behind the defending champion Minnesota Lynx for the final playoff spot.
One acquisition moreso than getting Wilson in the draft may have proved the biggest dividends for the Aces.
We've hired Bill Laimbeer, a 2x @NBA champion as a player & 3x @WNBA champion as a coach, to be our President of Basketball Ops & head coach pic.twitter.com/WY2gC2ftbk
— Las Vegas Aces ♦️♠️ (@LVAces) October 17, 2017
Amidst all the turmoil and uncertainty brewing in New York concerning the Liberty, Bill Laimbeer headed for greener pastures out west in Nevada to assume the role as the team’s head coach and President of Basketball Operations. Laimbeer had plenty of success in Gotham with the Libs in the regular season, but still departed The Big Apple sans his first championship as a coach since 2008 with the Detroit Shock.
While the concept of the head coach being integral to a team’s success appears to be becoming a lost art throughout sports, the brain trust at MGM Resorts went to the top of the W’s coaching food chain for its first hire. The results show that MGM has hit pay dirt with Laimbeer.
His value as a coach in the WNBA has only been amplified by how his former team – the Liberty — have performed. After a 22-12 record in 2017 (the best record in the Eastern Conference), New York has already surpassed their loss total from the previous campaign with a 7-14 record at the 2018 season’s midpoint.
There were games last season where the Stars appeared as if they were close to landing in the win column but the 2017 season was a case of a Fault in the Stars – hence only winning eight games last year.
It is not only Wilson. The rest of the team is well-improved. From Plum to Tamera Young to Kayla McBride to Carolyn Swords to Nia Coffey. Game on indeed.
I understand that there is a case to be made for Dan Hughes, who has coached the Seattle Storm to the best record in the W. But the Storm were a juggernaut in the making. The last two seasons may be considered disappointments by their standards as they were expected to contend. This year appears to be a case of Seattle at last ready to take that next step towards winning their first championship since 2010.
The Aces are a different story. With the freefall the Sun have been on since that hot start to the season – in part because Alyssa Thomas was injured for a portion of the season – Las Vegas is a real shot to make the playoffs. And – perhaps – we may have to start talking about the Aces as a future WNBA juggernaut.
The youngest team in the entire WNBA is playing like seasoned veterans under the leadership of Laimbeer and Wilson. That is what is the most dangerous attribute of this team – that their youth gives them only one direction to go in and that is up. Yes, their most recent contest leaves much to be desired — a 99-78 thrashing at the hands of the Los Angeles Sparks at home, but that game was close for the majority before LA went on a tear.
Laimbeer’s coaching and the team’s on-court presence led by Wilson has also led to Vegas becoming a full-fledged WNBA city. The support the team has received from the community is only on the rise and as long as the Aces continue to rack up big victories – like when they scored a huge upset by beating the defending champion Minnesota Lynx on the road – that support will increase further.
Both the Coach of the Year and Rookie of the Year are regular season awards. If things continue to unfold the way they are, the 2018 versions of both honors will fit in very well overlooking the Strip in the City of Sin.
By: Akiem Bailum (@AkiemBailum on Twitter, Instagram)
