This past week was a busy weekend in the realm of women’s basketball and the WNBA.
It included coach Mike Thibault re-upping as head coach of the Washington Mystics, Michaela Onyenwere (New York Liberty) being presented with the 2021 Rookie of the Year Award, the Los Angeles Sparks feeling slighted from AEG’s new deal where Staples Center was renamed Crypto.com Arena and Christy Hedgpeth leaving the W to become president of Playfly Sports Properties.
But the W’s active week also included a bombshell announcement from the W itself that it would be changing its playoff format beginning with the 2022 season.
The news from the WNBA was that it would switch to a 3-5-5 format where the first round series would be a best of three with the semifinals and Finals maintaining their best of five formats. In the first round, the first two games would be played at the arena of the higher seed with a potential third game being played at the other team’s home arena.
We have been evaluating different playoff formats over the past 12 months, and the new playoff format being announced today will enable fans to engage with all of the league’s best teams and top stars right from the start of the postseason with all eight championship contenders immediately involved in exciting, first-round action.
–WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert (press release)
Following significant discussions with our Competition Committee and a Playoff subcommittee we formed last year, it was clear that while the prior format’s single-elimination games created a win-and-advance level of excitement to the start of the postseason, the new best-of-three series format will provide added opportunities to create and showcase rivalries with all playoff-eligible teams participating.
–WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert (press release)
There is plenty to dissect from this announcement from the new format itself to how it could affect future postseasons. Here are five thoughts on what are a new (and improved?) playoffs for the WNBA.
Devalued Regular Season?
With the new format being announced, does it mean that the regular season means less? Under the previous postseason format, the top two seeds either got single byes (in the case of seeds three and four) or double byes (in the case of seeds one and two). Those byes were a reward for teams like the Connecticut Sun, Las Vegas Aces, Seattle Storm and Minnesota Lynx taking care of business in the regular season. Now, those teams, while maintaining a home court advantage in the postseason, have to play the first round. And the teams that they may play in the first round could be teams that may enter the postseason on a winning streak. Or those top seeds may be dealing with injuries. A lot changes with this announcement.
No 3-5-7?
As much as the new postseason format may create positives for the WNBA, there is still the issue of the Finals remaining a best of five instead of a best of seven. Game 7 is arguably the most intriguing phrase in all of sports and we believe, sooner or later, that the WNBA will eventually join the Game 7 wave.
Imagine a few seasons ago when the Washington Mystics and Connecticut Sun battled each other in the Finals in a grueling five game series. Who knows how that may have turned out if that series was a best of seven instead of a best of five. Or when the Lynx and Sparks met in back-to-back Finals as an extension of the budding rivalry between those two teams. What if those series were best of sevens?
Eventually, we believe, the Finals will be contested in a best of seven format, but there, perhaps, is one main issue the W must address before it crosses that bridge.
Travel
Travel, of course is that issue. In fact, it becomes an issue even with the first round.
The WNBA has not always been the best of leagues on the subject of travel accommodations – and that could potentially be a glaring problem in the first round. Imagine if there is a scenario where the Storm play the Atlanta Dream in the first round and that series goes to three games. Or envision a scenario where the Sun play the Sparks in the first round and that series goes to three.
Oh, and remember all of the chatter that has been going on about a possible expansion team in Oakland? What if that Oakland team is in a first-round series and they play the Liberty and that goes the distance?
Engelbert and the WNBA need to get its travel ducks in a row. It is one thing for said travel ducks to not be in said row for the postseason. If those problems extend to the playoffs, it could create an even bigger public relations problem especially given how WNBA players fly coach in the pros yet get better treatment travel-wise in college.
Bye-bye Single Elimination
Engelbert was correct in that statement when she mentioned the ramifications of getting rid of the single-elimination series. They did create a level of intrigue given it is one game. After all, while the Phoenix Mercury did advance to this past season’s Finals, the team was nearly upset by a young upstart Liberty team getting its first taste of postseason action since 2017 (New York’s last season at Madison Square Garden).
The single-elimination format does work better for the collegiate ranks than it does in the professional ranks. Also – in three-game series, as opposed to single-elimination, it creates more chatter around the WNBA since the buildup to a Game 2 will now include what adjustments the team that lost in Game 1 will make to possibly extend a series out to a series-deciding Game 3.
The old single-elimination format may have been a previous boon to teams that may have came away with those top four seeds, but even that, as was proven this past season, is no guarantee. After all, the Sun and Aces were both eliminated last season in the semifinals – the two teams that earned the double byes. And both were eliminated by teams that had to play in the first round.
What if this format was around last season?
If the 2021 season featured this postseason format, we would have seen a first-round series between the No. 1 seeded Sun and the No. 8 seeded Liberty. Given the proximity between Uncasville and Brooklyn, travel thankfully would not have been an issue in this series.
The No. 2 seeded Aces would have met up with the No. 7 seeded Dallas Wings, creating a storyline with Liz Cambage going up against her former team in Dallas. Travel may be a bit more of an issue here, but not entirely.
The No. 3 seeded Minnesota Lynx would have met up with the No. 6 seeded Chicago Sky. Obviously, no travel issues here given the short distance between the Twin Cities and the Windy City.
If the playoff format were around last season, we would have seen a first-round playoff matchup between the No. 4 seed Storm and the No. 5 seed Mercury. Phoenix eventually dispatched the Storm in the second round of last season’s playoffs. Obviously, the Sue Bird-Diana Taurasi hype would have been the primary buzz going into that series and plenty of pundits may also have picked Phoenix given how the Storm were scuffling prior to the playoffs.
Perhaps, to pass the time during the offseason, someone will do a simulation via NBA2K featuring those very hypothetical postseason matchups….
