June 30, 2025 • 46 mins
Keisha and Chris discuss the roster changes as the Indiana Fever waive DeWanna Bonner and sign Aari McDonald, Caitlin Clark’s injury and the upcoming Commissioner’s Cup Championship game.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:10):
Friends, Fever fans, welcome back to another Fever Replay
podcast, your weekly home for breakdown of Fever games and
news. Once again we are brought to you
by the love of the game. Sometimes you're injured.
For the love of the game, I am Chris Ordon.
(00:33):
Once again I am joined by very available and uninjured
throughout this season, Co host Keisha Gallagher.
How you doing Keisha? Healthy coach ready to get in
there. Good, good.
This was a crazy, crazy week. How was your week personally?
As a Phoenix fan, not great, butyou know, for basketball,
(00:57):
there's been a, there's been a lot of exciting stuff.
Some upset, some shocks, but it's a tough week of basketball,
lots of injuries. Lots of injuries and also just
lots of missing players, which is what we're going to talk
about first. Dejuana Bonner, we've been
missing her for a number of weeks now and we got the news.
(01:20):
If you haven't been paying attention to it, we found out
that Dewana Bonner and the Feverhave split ways.
The Fever waved Dewana, It seemslike this was Dewana's choice,
Bonner said. I want to sincerely thank the
Indiana Fever for the opportunity to be part of the
Fever franchise. Despite our shared goals and
(01:43):
excitement heading into the season, I felt the fit did not
work out and I appreciate the organization's willingness to
grant my request to move on, particularly at this point in my
career, Bonner said. I wish the Fever great success
as they continue to build aroundthis dynamic group of young
(02:04):
players. So Bonner requested, as she
states there to be like go and it wasn't a trade situation.
Her contract was unprotected. So she was waved.
She was paid out with a pro rated rate.
So she got paid for the days shewas there.
But we do gain some cap space, but we have a hole in our
(02:26):
roster. We actually filled that hole
instantly with Ari MacDonald, who, you know, listeners of the
podcast would know. I was really hoping that we'd
find a way for her. So we did find a way for her.
Sadly, even though we filled theliteral hole, does not fill the
physical hole that Dejuana Bonner leaves because Arie is
(02:51):
not a tall lady. She plays a different position,
one we certainly need, but they are very different players.
What are your thoughts, Keisha? Yeah, the fever stay guard heavy
you guys just we'd we wanna keepthose guards coming in with the
anxiety of an injured point guard.
But I am sad that it did not work out for Bonner.
(03:15):
I think the way that this rolledout due due to a lot of how the
media portrays things has been pretty unfortunate though.
It's feels like there that a lotof folks are trying to drag her
through the mud. And me personally, as a fan of
her, watching her play in Indiana, I thought that she did
have some pretty important and key moments for the team, but I
(03:40):
never really saw chemistry there.
I didn't really ever see her andthink that there was a role that
she was finding for herself. Yeah, and we talked about that
many times. We'd be like, OK, Dewana also
will quiet this game or wow, she, you know, barely played.
Oh, she's coming off the bench now.
(04:00):
Like just to review like the actual situation.
What happened? We picked her up, we put her, we
gave her pretty decent money fora one year contract.
We were excited, She was excited.
I remember in the beginning, in fact, we talked about it, how
she was like, man, never played before a crowd like this.
It's nice to have on my side like this is great.
(04:21):
She seemed super pumped. But in the very beginning now we
never really saw her have like her big breakout game.
We saw breakout moments, We saw times where she helped us close
a game or two, but we didn't seeit.
And we ourselves were like holding our breath, like, I
can't wait to be excited. We have Dwana Bonner.
We know she's excellent. She played excellent last year.
(04:43):
Like I remember us playing against her being like, man,
this Dwana Bonner chick is really good.
Like, it's not like, oh, this should be expected.
She's older. She probably wasn't going to be
great. That is not what her expectation
nor the fevers nor the fans. Everyone kind of thought this
was going to be a bigger thing, right?
So she comes on the team not really working so far.
(05:06):
I assumed it was a fit situation, Like we're just
trying to figure out, you know, where does she fit into the game
plan, Maybe have to drop some plays for her, who knows.
I was assuming it would work outeventually, but at some point
she got moved to the bench, which at the time everybody
seemed fine with. But then she not only got moved
(05:27):
to the bench, she wasn't even the First off the bench.
After a while, that started to be Sophie.
So she was like a second off thebench situation.
And I think looking back now, hindsight not only being 2020,
but we know from her own perspective that that was not
where she wanted to be. You know, she didn't outright
say I didn't want to be a bench player, but she left after
(05:50):
taking a leave of absence for personal reasons, which we now
and now was her trying to figureout her life and if she wanted
to finish the season off with the Fever and then asked to be
waived, which isn't the worst way for things to have ended
with the fever. In a lot of ways it's good.
It gives us cap space and it gives us the ability to pick up
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anyone we need to like Airy, we picked up somebody we wanted to,
which we couldn't have done if she if we had to trade.
But it is an interesting way. Like me personally, I have never
liked when people take this tactas far as being on the player
side. I don't feel like she screwed
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us. I do feel like it's a business
and it's her career, so a whole year somewhere you don't want to
be. She doesn't have a lot of years
left. She's 37 years old.
I get it. I'm not like, oh, Dewan is the
worst, but I've I've never likedwhen players do that.
I'm not like, Oh yeah, that's great, It's fine.
I didn't really like it that much.
(06:53):
I would have liked her to continue trying.
Like when she post, she actuallyposted and I don't know who she
was responding to specifically, but she posted something saying
like quitter. I've never been a quitter, I've
never done it before. I'm never going to blah, blah,
all this stuff. And I was like, you did quit the
team. Like that is what you did, which
(07:14):
is once again, you're in a toughsituation.
You got to make your own life choices.
You know, we weren't using you. That's like a fact.
So the Fever also, it was very mutual decision and that the
Fever had stopped playing her asa starter and her minutes were
starting to dwindle. So it's like, it's not like she
made this up, like she's blowingsomething out of proportion.
(07:37):
There was work that needed to bedone to put her in the place she
felt like she needed to be. And I get it that she was like,
I don't think that the spot on this team is worth that work.
That was kind of like what I wasfeeling from it.
I also want to think of this from a.
It is a business, so yeah, the the.
There is a lot to be said about having someone who's being paid
(08:01):
$200,000 on an unprotected contract sit on your bench when
you are starting to get paranoidabout injuries.
And let's really think about this when there has been some
criticism about this in this path in the past, but I don't
think anyone could say anything about it, especially with the
performance that Kelsey Mitchell's having the season.
But Kelsey Mitchell I think is like one of the one of the
(08:22):
highest salaries on that team who might be maxed out at
whatever that cap is for her, which makes sense.
She deserves that money. Yeah.
And then there's Natasha Howard,who is another great grab for
the fever. And like we've talked about it
many times how we love having Natasha Howard, but it also
hasn't been the smoothest transition.
(08:43):
I definitely think it's been better for her.
But also like that's another that's a lot of money.
That's 200, maybe 50 for Kelsey,200 ish for Natasha, who again,
three time WNBA champion brings that level, that veteran
experience and that overall experience playing on multiple
teams worth it. But that's a lot of money to
have kind of tied up in someone who's getting no minutes and who
(09:07):
is have who has an expectation to get those minutes.
And I, like you mentioned is on a limit like limited legs.
She's been in the league a long time.
There's a lot there's a lot of stuff up in the air right now.
I don't think it's as simple as I'm upset I'm not getting
playing time. I'm I'm giving up on this team.
I don't think it's that black and white.
No, I agree. That's why.
(09:27):
Yeah. Because when you look at it, you
know something people will tell people young in their career,
whether it's basketball or otherwise, it's like, hey, be
patient, put in the work, peopleare going to notice you, yada
yada. That's not where she's at.
She has eyes. If she tells teams that she's
open to play with them, there's a good chance she can make it
there. And she doesn't have the time to
(09:50):
be patient. This is the time to go, go, go,
and she needs to be on a team where she can play.
So I totally get that. And you're right.
Like this wasn't the worst shakefor the Fever.
That's the main thing that doesn't put a bad taste in my
mouth about it is it does help. Like as a Laker fan, when we had
the Russell Westbrook contract, which was huge, I've tried to
(10:13):
purge it from my mind. It was many, many, many millions
of dollars. He's one of the highest paid.
We brought him over. We thought he was going to give
us a ring. He turned out being a horrible
fit. He looked like he didn't know
how to play basketball on some nights, can be completely
honest, if you weren't watching,that's what it looked like.
And then everyone was like, bench and get rid of it.
And it was kind of like, guys, we're paying too much.
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He has to be out. Like if you're paying that much,
he has to be out on it. Like the person that's going to
replace him is like some guy wholike is AG league person.
Like we have no money on our bench.
Nobody is there to replace him. Having dead weight like that
contract wise is a huge problem.So like for that to get
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alleviated is a really big deal and very helpful to us.
It's a problem we still have to solve, but we have the tools to
do it. We have the cap space.
I'm very interested. We kind of talked a little bit
about it before we started recording.
Like, gosh, she said that she would want to go play with her
wife in Phoenix or play in, I think she said Atlanta.
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Those are like the two places she'd want to play.
Now the question is, gosh, how much could she even get paid?
Now good news for her, she got paid a prorated rate, which is
very similar if not the same as like a vet minimum.
So she kind of like already got paid at least a vet minimum this
year. So that's not it's less than she
(11:42):
was hoping for, but not the worst.
So if she can get any contract going anywhere and playing
meaningful minutes might not be the worst for her.
But like how much room do they have with Phoenix to even pay
her? And that's the thing that is
really confusing for me is if she wanted to go to Phoenix, why
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didn't she just go to Phoenix? Like I understand, yeah.
The draw to play for Stephanie and for Coach White.
I know that her family, I know her kids live in Indiana, but
she's played in Phoenix before 80s in Phoenix.
I just that was a really confusing.
I was excited to see her in in Indiana, but I was also confused
by that call. And now as a Phoenix fan, I know
(12:26):
that Phoenix very recently just let go of Megan McConnell due to
her injury. She's been out then pretty much
the entire season and just signed for a year contract.
Keanu Williams. So we don't have the cap we
don't have. Like it would be disrespectful
to try to get her to Phoenix forthat money.
I think there's only a few teamsthat do have the space and I
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want to say Connecticut is one of them.
I can't imagine she would go back to Connecticut.
I think maybe it was, I want to say it was the Valkyrie and it
might have. I don't think the Dream has the
the the space either. I mean, they have superstars
like Ryan Howard and Alicia Gray.
Brittany Griner was a big grab for them this year.
So I don't really know where shecould go.
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And it is also fairly telling, we're talking about this on
Sunday, June 29th. This happened I think about 5
days ago. She hasn't been picked up yet,
right? You know, and she's a quality
player. So regardless of the fit that
happened on Fever, I think that there are plenty of teams who
have starters right now that arenot as good as Dewana Bonner.
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So the fact that she hasn't got snapped up yet, I'm a little
nervous for her. I understand her shooting her
shot but right I don't know. I hope this works out for her
honestly, she seems like a nice lady.
Yeah. Well, I was just gonna say a
couple of things that I think this highlights though when it
comes to these decisions. When you're in a build back
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season, I think that this bringsto the table how much value it
could bring to the league if we had more cap, if we had more
room. Correct.
Because I would be devastated ifwe don't get to see Duana Bonner
play anymore basketball in 2025.Considering the record.
She just broke with the fever like it would.
(14:17):
It would just be horrible to seeher career go out like this.
Even if it was kind of a back, you know, a backdoor deal or
things were being said and weren't shared maybe as openly
as people would have wanted. It would be just a big
misfortune to not see her complete the season on whatever
team. Mm Hmm.
(14:37):
Yeah, no, I agree. And that's why I love the
expansions. First off, what's clear is
there's not enough teams for theamount of talent out there, and
there's also not enough money for those teams.
So both of those things are very, very clear to me.
Only having watched the WNBA seriously last year and this
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year, it's glaringly obvious. I'm like, what?
What do you mean? Like, like in the NBA, Aerie
McDonald would have been on a team starting?
Like, it just didn't make sense when she started playing.
Like, why is there a person thatwas available that can play like
that? And right now, for the amount of
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days that Dewana Bonners has been available, how is no one
snatched up? It doesn't make any sense.
I'm not understanding it. It's just, I mean, you know,
they think the league is hopefully, I know they're
expanding and that takes time and you don't want to do it too
fast. So that's great.
But what are we doing about the cap space?
How are we helping these teams that you need more, You need
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more than 11 or 12 players. That's not enough.
It's just not enough players. Anyway, before we move on the
other side to this, which I don't want to miss out on
bringing up, the per reason Dewana was not starting was
because Lexi Hull is not just playing well.
She has transformed herself as aplayer in the WNBA all she's
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like a record high for herself in like every category.
And I don't like anybody who watches the fever is like Lexie
shouldn't be starting. We're way better with her on the
court, which I don't want. Like, you know, I wanted to take
a moment to talk about Dewana, but she's not on the team
anymore. Let's like highlight the actual
slightly good side of this wholestory, which is that we had
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somebody who was playing more meaningful and productive
minutes than Dewana freaking bought her.
Who? Who could that have been?
It was Lexie Hall, and it's crazy.
It's kind of crazy what we're seeing out of her.
I mean, the only bad news about Lexie Hall starting is she's
probably out of contention for six men now because she was that
impactful this entire season. No, like that's really the only
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bad news. But yeah, I mean, team wise, I
think this is a great opportunity.
Now that we know that Joanna is not going to be available, who
is going to fill that post role,especially going into this next
half of the season? Because we have a huge game
coming up and we've seen what the impact of not having Dewanna
for several games looks like. And I think there has been a lot
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of folks stepping up and having great games that we've seen,
especially this last week. And then there's been
opportunities where it's like this is This is why not having
another big, another season big available is hurting us.
As far as post players, First off, Howard is really starting
to gel when we had just talked about Dewana and like that, oh,
I'm not fitting this much work needs to be done and only she
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and the Fever know how much workthat was, you know, in order to
make me fit into the scheme. Like, is that what I want to do
right now? And she decided no, which I
think probably she knows what she's talking about better than
me. Probably a good call, right?
I think it was like, either she had to play something completely
out of her bag or they were like, yeah, we'll figure it out,
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but we don't know the answer yet.
And she's like, you know, season's almost halfway done,
guys, we should have an answer. You know, whatever conversations
that was, she decided not enough.
And then whatever conversations are having with Howard, I think
are going in the opposite direction.
I think they're really starting to settle in and be like, wow,
Howard is this person who is a match up nightmare.
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Like she is bigger and stronger than every guard in the league.
She is faster on her feet than every center.
Like, this is a fantastic player.
We don't need to create plays for her.
She can just like beat her man and be ready.
And if we need to force things in, we can force them through
her. Like that's the answer, you
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know, because you do oftentimes see Boston, who I absolutely
love, have trouble if it's just like go time, we need to have
her go straight in there. She is sometimes out muscled
down there. She's rarely ever outsmarted
down there. She's making amazing moves.
Her pick and roll is incredible,especially with Clark.
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But sometimes she has a little trouble just muscling things in.
We need a tough point. Go in and get it.
Boston doesn't always happen. Howard is fitting that role for
us because sometimes you just need to stop a run.
You don't need a pretty play. You need to get a point on the
board and then a defensive stop.And if you need a point on the
(19:27):
board and an offensive stop, Howard is one of the very best
in the league at those two things.
So it's not like she's like, oh,this is she's like blowing up
the stat sheet, but she's settling in and really seems to
be a part of what we're trying to do, which is pretty exciting
for me. Yeah, I mean, again, like this
is someone who has been in the league and has won with a lot of
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different types of players, different teams, has played a
lot of different roles. And I think she is similar to
Kelsey Mitchell when you need something to get done.
She's a go to player because of all the reasons you've listed
before. She's a matchup nightmare.
She is strong, she is fast and she's very clever.
I think that's something that Alia Boston will get to learn a
lot about this year. Is Alia Boston's probably one of
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her biggest struggles is she's working really hard.
Way too much of the time of the possession.
As a post player, you have to bereally cautious of when you
start posting up, when you startgetting aggressive, when you
start putting all of your weightand energy into bodies.
And if you're overdoing it, getting exhausted, getting
frustrated when you think you'regetting fouled because you've
(20:34):
wasted all that energy, I think that can get into her head.
And you can see those struggles impact how she's presenting
herself for the rest of that quarter.
So I think that's just somethingthat takes time to learn
because, yeah, Aliyah Boston's one of my favorite post players.
She's incredible. She continues to get better.
I will always be an advocate forher getting the ball every
possession. The other piece of it is
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Michaela Timpson. So Bree Turner I've not been
impressed with. I feel like the coaching staff
has not necessarily been impressed with, I think we we're
trying her in spots, especially now that Dantes is not in.
So like Dantes obviously is kindof earned her spot as our second
(21:16):
best big right. But when we're looking at where,
who's filling this void? Kind of in our post, we were
trying Turner and it wasn't really working.
It was not really working here. But we just recently as of the
last game with the Wings startedplaying meaningful minutes with
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Timson and I got to say that wasexciting.
First of it was exciting for me just to get the rookie some play
time because quite frankly, we she hasn't gotten a ton of play
time. But then what I saw out there
was pretty cool. She needs some work.
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She is a rookie in a big spot ina grown woman's league.
You know, like, that takes time.She's going to have to put on
some weight for sure. She's getting out muscled and
sometimes outsmarted and sometimes targeted.
But at the same time, I saw bright spots that I definitely
wasn't seeing when we had Turnerin there.
(22:18):
And I saw moments with her, likeputting on her big girl pants,
you know, and kind of muscling her way into a basket and making
it happen. And I was like, oh, OK.
Like she was showing me that fire and that drive to like,
kind of take pride in her own minutes.
You know, you can tell she's like, OK, I'm out here.
I need to make this happen. Like I need to be doing
something while I'm out here andnot like forcing it.
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I didn't see a lot of that, but I saw a lot of like, I'm here.
I need to make my presence known.
I need to be a post for this team, not just like a fifth body
on the floor, which is, I don't know, I'm excited to see where
it goes. What were your thoughts on her
first, like, real game? I think of the season.
I think she's just so athletic. Once she figures out, once she
(23:02):
figures out how to apply that strength and probably put a few
LB's on, I think she's gonna be another menace for this team
because she gives me a kind of aTammy energy.
I could see her leading a lot offast break opportunities.
I can see her with that, the range that she has, really
stretching out the floor and creating more cutting lanes.
I think she I'm, I'm very glad that when we were going through
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the possibilities of people being waved or cut when all of
the injuries were kind of popping at the same time, I'm
very glad that Timson was not a victim of that.
I think she brings a lot to the table.
She just needs the time. Yeah, I was shocked when I
looked. I was looking into kind of her
stats and stuff about her and I realized that she's only listed
(23:47):
as 6/1 and I was like how's thatpossible?
61 doesn't sound right. But then I realized she has a
wingspan of 6/10. Then long 6. 10 wingspan and I
was like, that's why it doesn't when she's out there, she
doesn't feel undersized. She's not your traditional 5 and
(24:09):
we don't play her in that position.
But I, yeah, I was like, how could she possibly be 6 one that
doesn't make any sense, right? And then that's that's why those
long arms, really. Take found out she's part
pterodactyl and it all came together.
Right. Do you want a part pterodactyl
(24:29):
on a basketball? Team, I'm pro pterodactyl, I
just want everyone to know that in case anyone had questions.
Same here. We're very we're allies here on
this podcast when it comes to pterodactyls.
The other thing that she brings to the table and this is A1 game
sample, but it did get me excited because I have this pet
(24:50):
theory when it comes to our losses, right?
Because we tend to get blown outin the fourth quarter, right?
Like we've had the last like 3 or 4 losses, same game, well
thought first half that we come up on top.
Third quarter, it was different each time.
Sometimes it's questionable. Sometimes we're right in it and
(25:12):
doing great and just keeping it up.
But then all the time, all of our last I think 4 losses the
fourth quarter, we just crumble and then we have no gas in the
tank. We look like a completely
different team, right? Specifically against the Sparks,
like we had that game put away and then they didn't really do
(25:33):
anything different. They just we're able to
breakthrough like our defense disappeared.
And so we can go into why you think that is.
But one of my main things I've been noticing is we will start
the fourth quarter with our closing lineup on the court.
And I don't like that. I don't like that at all.
(25:53):
That to me really paints yourself into a corner.
If you have your closing lineup out there to start the 4th,
you're either saying we're goingto stay in for 10 minutes or
we're going to pull them at somepoint so they can get a little
rest and then go back in. Either one is bad to tell the
other team, you know, like, hey,these are clearly our best 5.
(26:18):
There's going to be a good 5 minutes, 3 minutes.
Who knows how many minutes coming up very soon where we're
going to take them out to give them a little bit of rest.
That's scary to do right before the end of the game.
It's also scary to leave them inthe whole time.
Because I feel like in both those situations, you see why we
kind of become tissue paper, even though like we've kind of
hung our hat on our defense the whole year.
(26:41):
Like, you know, Coach White's always talking about keeping
teams under 20 for all four quarters and like we seem very
capable every single game of keeping them under 20 for 3/4.
You know, like we're a team thatcould do that, but sometimes we
don't keep them under 30 in the fourth quarter.
And that seems to be the reason we lose every time.
(27:02):
So what I saw in this, like I said, just a sample size of 1,
was Timpson started the 4th. She played her biggest chunk
halfway through the 3rd and thenplayed several minutes into the
4th. And then Howard closed out the
game. And I like Howard having rested,
closing out the game. I like that a lot and that's
(27:24):
what I like. I think that could be a really
big piece to the puzzle. So I don't know.
I don't know. What are your thoughts?
I'm sometimes when I talk about basketball, a little rotation
heavy, like maybe I put too muchimportance on the rotation of
Subs and everything, but to me that was a glaring thing.
(27:44):
I think when you're playing thismany games in a week though that
that has to be a discussion. I mean that has to be
considered. There was a lot of basketball
this week. I think everyone is tired.
The injuries are stacking up andthe decision making when it
comes to coaching is going to have a huge impact.
There's been a lot of technicalsthis week, there's been a lot of
hard fouls. Melbourne on the Mystics that
(28:06):
are tooth knocked out by ChelseaGray in a very competitive game.
It's getting chippy in in in general and we're approaching
the All Star Break Commissioner cups coming up.
It's getting to the point of theseason where wait, wait.
Wait, who's in the Commissioner?Cup.
Oh, that's right, we are. Oh, we are.
OK, go on. But all of that to say, putting
(28:29):
that together, those fourth quarters are not just being
lost, they're almost being givenaway.
And there's a lot of factors that I'm seeing.
And I think the one of the key things that was driving me crazy
was the points in the paint in that Sparks game.
The Sparks owned the key. I think they had I think half of
(28:52):
their points or close to half oftheir points were all in the
paint, which is insane for for how strong our bigs are.
But I think we just got overwhelmed and I didn't really
see anyone making that push or taking the initiative.
There was just almost a, an OK to let it go at some point.
(29:13):
And I also feel like when it comes to decision making, I
don't know what your thoughts are.
The smaller lineup, I feel like it's not working.
I feel like we're going to it a lot and I'm not seeing the
benefit of that paying off yet. So maybe it's still being
tweaked, but I don't really wantto see that anymore.
It's not when you have Natasha Howard and Leah Boston.
Yeah, like our small lineup works against small teams, but
(29:39):
the times we've gotten beat mosthandily is versus teams that
have multiple bigs that are skilled.
And so it's kind of like, OK, great.
Like, yeah, if we're playing a small ball, we might be able to
win. Great.
Cool. Yeah, most of the league
doesn't, you know, like, we alsoneed to figure out that side of
(30:01):
the game. And realistically, if we have
our best big players on the court, we should also be able to
beat the small teams too. So it's like that's not a pitch
that's going to work most of thetime.
So I agree, I'm not a super fan of it.
I like, I mean, I feel like we kind of talked about this a
little bit a couple pods ago, but our game really shines when
(30:25):
we're not doing the transition thing because that's our thing.
Our half court really shines when we're getting a lot of
screening actions in our double screens, our flare screens,
picking pops, all this fun stuffin the corner are really cool
and something that you don't seea lot of other teams do, and you
saw us doing really well with those.
(30:49):
You need bigs to set your screens.
That's kind of the whole point. Yeah, you're going to have your
flashy guards running around, but without the big to set the
screen, it's just not happening and you don't see it happen.
Like that's kind of where you see our offense, our half court
offense start to spotter, I think is in those moments when
(31:10):
we're looking around and we're like, oh, it's just a bunch of
us ball handlers. What are we, what are we doing?
What are we doing? Let's take a little bit of time
just to pay the bills. Talk about Caitlin Clark, even
though she's out. But we didn't really do it.
Didn't the injury, it was a second time where it's kind of
(31:30):
just like the quad injury. We didn't see like a moment
where it happened and she just kind of came up lame after the
game apparently. And now we're finding out that
she has a growing injury. Obviously super concerning.
Well, it's nice that we kind of split those games with one win
and one loss. But obviously Caitlin Clark is
(31:51):
the heart and soul of our team, so that's a problem.
At first I kind of hoped it was like, oh, you know, she's still
coming back. We kind of discussed it was
going to take a couple weeks forher like conditioning to get
back where it needed to be for her to play the minute she's
used to playing. I was like, maybe this is one of
those things. They just wanted to sit her for
(32:11):
one of the back to backs, you know, And then she sent the
second one and I was like, oh, you know, I get it.
She's sitting both back to backsso she can be ready for the
commissioner come. But I don't know if I'm reading
too much into this. There was this moment where Lexi
Hole was miked up and they showed her in the game, jump up
and cheer, and Caitlin Clark jumped up too.
(32:33):
And then she goes ow and she nods and sits back down.
And I was like, oh, not great, not great.
If cheering. I'm hoping that maybe she was
saying ow about something else, like maybe she's watching and
somebody got hit. She's like, oh, ow, I, I don't
know. That made me a lot more nervous.
(32:54):
And I'm like, damn it, is she seriously just injured again?
Like this sucks. I mean, we don't, they haven't
really said much. They haven't given us a
timeline. They haven't said anything.
So I'm nervous. I mean, I think they're not
saying anything on purpose. It's a gamesmanship thing.
They have this very big game with the Commissioners Cup
coming up. They don't want to let the other
team know what to prepare for. I get that.
(33:17):
I'm just nervous because we literally don't know what's
going on with her. It's also it's a huge week.
You mean Caitlin has been injured, the situation with
Bonner's finalize, you're acquiring this new guard.
All of this right before this huge event that the links are
hungry for and playing against the links without your star.
(33:40):
It has to feel very stressful going into this game because
you're you have to have two plans prepared and they need to
execute, execute both plans perfectly if you want a chance
to beat Minnesota right now. They are just, I mean, they've
had their losses, but they are just a beast.
I would be concerned as well. Great.
(34:03):
Thanks. Keisha.
You bet. Thanks for that.
On the other side of things, Airy looked fantastic last game
versus the wings she started, which is kind of what I was
expecting. Like I didn't think it was worth
cutting Coulson to sign Airy forsure.
(34:23):
I don't think Coulson deserved that.
But since we were able to get Airy without losing her, I would
personally have started her overCoulson.
It just seems like her fit her ability on both defense and
offense to like get things going.
She is very active on defense. She was doing a great job of
(34:43):
taking Enrique out of the game. Yeah, Enrique from Dallas.
Yeah, she she destroyed her. So that was super cool to see.
But then also on the play creation side, on offense, she's
just got a motor under her and she's like, this is what I'm
going to do. I'm either going to score, I'm
going to create a shot for you. Be ready, you know, like I love
(35:04):
it. It's so great having her on our
team. So in spite of losing Caitlin,
at least we got something. Yeah, you've got a, you got a
capital M menace. And she's gonna be, I can't wait
to see her matched up against some of the the links because
she's gonna frustrate Courtney Williams and Heideman.
She's gonna, she's gonna be an annoying gnat to all of those
(35:26):
shooters. And we'll see if she can have
that same impact that she had against Zurique.
Speaking of shooters, before we move completely off, Caitlin
Clark, it was really interestingbecause Kelsey Plum, you
probably heard this, had this really interesting take because
people are always going to, you know, judge Caitlin super
harshly, which I don't know, youcould decide if you think that's
(35:50):
right or not. But I mean, she is the face of
the league right now, so people are going to judge her.
But Kelsey Plum said, is Caitlinhaving a shooting slump?
Everyone wants to talk about that, but did you know Sabrina
Ionescu is 2 for seven from three the last two games.
Page Buckets 2 for 17 the last five games.
(36:13):
This was before the last game, by the way.
She said it before. This is a 2 days ago worth of
stats. Marina Mabry 2 for 17 last three
games. Kelsey Blum 4 for 22 last four
games. Enrique 4 for 17 last three.
Chelsea Gray 7 for 28 last six. Bree Stewart, 6 for 20, last
(36:34):
seven. She said the entire WNBA is in a
shooting slump. We're tired, which is actually
not an insignificant point to make.
You know, that was just a socialmedia post.
You know, she's just kind of clapping back at people.
But at the same time, it's like,yeah, you know, when you talk
about the number of games we're playing, when your legs are
(36:55):
tired, you're missing from deep.That's like a fact and that's
just kind of what we're seeing across the league.
We're seeing it from Caitlin as well while she was in.
So I think we kind of hit on this earlier though, like the W
doesn't have the same money thatthe NBA has and the schedule and
(37:16):
the season is quite different. They are tired.
I think it is fair to say that that the last few games have
been exciting. They're high scoring.
We still have people shooting phenomenal percentages.
So sure, some of these big namesmay be struggling in certain
positions, but also I think wasn't, I can't remember which
(37:39):
team it was who just broke another scoring record.
It might have been Seattle. But there people are shooting
really well from the three, maybe not individuals who you
happen to focus on because of their media attention, but it's
how many We could pull the same sheets for multiple NBA stars or
(38:00):
multiple Euro professionals. I I think it just gets really
ticky tacky when you have so much pressure on a player like
Caitlin Clark, who's in her second year.
So she's having a couple of rough games.
I think it's crazy to call that a slump.
She also is coming. She's dealing with an injury
coming back. Yeah, everyone's tired, multiple
(38:20):
injuries. People are playing probably more
minutes than their coaches wouldlike them to, especially in
these key roles when you're a point guard.
Should. I mean, we want our superstars
to play as much as they can. But if you're up by 40 and
you're forced to keep your starters in because you have no
one on your bench, like that's not great.
No, absolutely. And that's the, I was listening
to a podcast that your wife sentme that had Sue Bird and Howard
(38:45):
talking. It was fantastic.
Check it out. But they were talking about this
issue with reffing and how it's kind of crazy that the and the
WNBA plays shorter minutes, 40 game, 40 minutes per game versus
48. But they still have one extra
foul, which they mentioned was aholdover from DNBA, meaning that
(39:09):
the NBA used to have that many fouls.
They changed it. But when you look at that plus
the small roster size, it's thisreally kind of crazy situation
where you have women playing less minutes but allowed to have
more fouls. And it doesn't make any sense.
Like that's when you talk about this being a physical league.
(39:32):
Why are we allowing? Like if you let that many people
have that many fouls, that's that many more heavy fouls on
your stars. And why is that allowed?
It doesn't make any sense. I mean, not to talk about it,
you know, our clear competitors podcast, but Sue Bird, I mean
her, her, the the depth and breadth of knowledge that she
(39:54):
has about basketball when it comes to college and
professional international, likeon the on the Olympic level, she
is just so she's so well thoughtout when it comes to those types
of situations. Like yes, we want to have our.
Incredible teams play, and by giving them this additional
(40:15):
foul, it keeps those players on the court more.
And that's exciting. But exactly that now you have
these players on really small rosters getting more physical,
having, you know, the WS, a physical league.
They're having more opportunities to have all of
this, you know, violence basically acted against them.
(40:36):
And the league is putting their stamp on saying, yes, that's
allowed. Yeah, we actually, you just so
you know, you didn't use all your fouls last week.
You should probably be fouling alittle more.
You know, people, players hate fouling out.
If they didn't have 6 fouls, then you wouldn't have as many
people going to five. You'd have more people that get
(40:58):
to 4 and are like, gosh, I really need to cool this down.
You know, like. I think that I think that's, I
think that's that is especially because of the injuries.
That's something that I wish again, could be discussed and
considered. How many like, gosh, I wanna, I
know Melbourne got hurt this week, lost a tooth.
I know Lexi held for Phoenix, punctured her lung in New York,
(41:22):
had to take a train back to get back to Phoenix.
I know that Ryan Howard went outtoday with a hip injury.
It's it's a lot. It's a lot.
And their physical games, lots of games.
I think we have to really consider if you know the powers
that be, how are we keeping the players safe?
How are we keeping their careerslong?
Are the officials as trained as they should be?
(41:44):
And are we paying them enough that if a situation happens
where they're considering retirement, they can comfortably
retire instead of creating this chaotic narrative that's now
anyone is talking about? Mm hmm.
On that very bright note, let's move on to our big game we have
coming up on Tuesday versus Minneapolis.
(42:08):
It is the Commissioners Cup game.
As a reminder, guys, that means that the entire team is going to
split $500,000 plus a certain amount of crypto.
I'm not sure exactly how much, but they're getting that too.
That is a lot of money for our players.
Not all the players are Caitlin Clark and are on every single
(42:30):
commercial that comes up during the game, which I'm happy for
her, but not all of them are millionaires.
Remember that. So this is a life changing
amount of money for some of our bench players and a good amount
of money for even our starters. So this is a big deal.
How are we going to do Keisha? What's going to happen?
(42:51):
Well, I just have to say this, and I'm going to say it now so I
can get it out there. Collier is having a
record-breaking year. I think she is the stand out.
Don't get mad at people. I think she's the stand out only
option really for MVP and I think that she is basically
(43:16):
unguardable. If you can shut her down.
If we have, you can, Henry. McDonald though, right?
It's really, it's really all about shutting down Collier and
then making sure that everyone else feels pressured to take
uncomfortable shots because if their feet are set, the Lynx are
gonna score. They're very aggressive, they're
very fast, they're super disciplined.
(43:37):
Cheryl Reeves is one of the mostintense coaches in the league
and she demands perfection. So this is gonna be a tough
game, not unwinnable, but we just have to.
We can't give up a fourth quarter to the Lynx.
It's just not possible. We have to play really great
basketball each quarter, have tolimit the turnovers and we
cannot let them dictate the paceof the game.
(43:59):
Courtney Williams and Collier had the type of chemistry that
Mitchell and pardon me, that Clark and Boston have that
Mitchell has with Howard. It it's it's crazy how they can
find each other. And then you have people coming
off the bench like Jay Shepherd who's huge down low.
You have Kayla McBride who can shoot from anywhere behind the
(44:22):
arc. It's just a very stacked and
talented team. Oh, I mean Alana Thomas coming
off the bench is another big post player and all of them are
fast and they can all shoot the three.
Great. Now here's what we have on our
side. Got Aaron McDonald, who was
sitting on her couch last week, not playing.
(44:44):
But we also have some great shooters.
That's the nice thing is that wecan get very hot and we have
some players that are playing lights out from beyond the
three. So we do always have that in our
pocket. I hope the fourth quarter
doesn't come back to bite us. But I got good news for you
friends out there. We are going to have a second
(45:06):
episode. We're going to recap that
Commissioners Cup game later on this week and we'll also just
briefly touch on the upcoming the other two games because we
got the Aces on Thursday and on Saturday we have the Sparks
again. So we got a big week of
basketball. But with that, I just want to
thank you guys for listening. I hope you guys have a great
(45:28):
week. I hope all of your groins are
fine and that there's not a sneaky injury waiting there for
you. Hopefully not.
Hopefully it didn't just jinx you, but thanks once again for
listening and we'll see you nexttime on the Fever Replay
podcast. Stretch, Stretch all.
(45:51):
Right.
Friends, Fever fans, welcome back to another Fever Replay
podcast, your weekly home for breakdown of Fever games and
news. Once again we are brought to you
by the love of the game. Sometimes you're injured.
For the love of the game, I am Chris Ordon.
(00:33):
Once again I am joined by very available and uninjured
throughout this season, Co host Keisha Gallagher.
How you doing Keisha? Healthy coach ready to get in
there. Good, good.
This was a crazy, crazy week. How was your week personally?
As a Phoenix fan, not great, butyou know, for basketball,
(00:57):
there's been a, there's been a lot of exciting stuff.
Some upset, some shocks, but it's a tough week of basketball,
lots of injuries. Lots of injuries and also just
lots of missing players, which is what we're going to talk
about first. Dejuana Bonner, we've been
missing her for a number of weeks now and we got the news.
(01:20):
If you haven't been paying attention to it, we found out
that Dewana Bonner and the Feverhave split ways.
The Fever waved Dewana, It seemslike this was Dewana's choice,
Bonner said. I want to sincerely thank the
Indiana Fever for the opportunity to be part of the
Fever franchise. Despite our shared goals and
(01:43):
excitement heading into the season, I felt the fit did not
work out and I appreciate the organization's willingness to
grant my request to move on, particularly at this point in my
career, Bonner said. I wish the Fever great success
as they continue to build aroundthis dynamic group of young
(02:04):
players. So Bonner requested, as she
states there to be like go and it wasn't a trade situation.
Her contract was unprotected. So she was waved.
She was paid out with a pro rated rate.
So she got paid for the days shewas there.
But we do gain some cap space, but we have a hole in our
(02:26):
roster. We actually filled that hole
instantly with Ari MacDonald, who, you know, listeners of the
podcast would know. I was really hoping that we'd
find a way for her. So we did find a way for her.
Sadly, even though we filled theliteral hole, does not fill the
physical hole that Dejuana Bonner leaves because Arie is
(02:51):
not a tall lady. She plays a different position,
one we certainly need, but they are very different players.
What are your thoughts, Keisha? Yeah, the fever stay guard heavy
you guys just we'd we wanna keepthose guards coming in with the
anxiety of an injured point guard.
But I am sad that it did not work out for Bonner.
(03:15):
I think the way that this rolledout due due to a lot of how the
media portrays things has been pretty unfortunate though.
It's feels like there that a lotof folks are trying to drag her
through the mud. And me personally, as a fan of
her, watching her play in Indiana, I thought that she did
have some pretty important and key moments for the team, but I
(03:40):
never really saw chemistry there.
I didn't really ever see her andthink that there was a role that
she was finding for herself. Yeah, and we talked about that
many times. We'd be like, OK, Dewana also
will quiet this game or wow, she, you know, barely played.
Oh, she's coming off the bench now.
(04:00):
Like just to review like the actual situation.
What happened? We picked her up, we put her, we
gave her pretty decent money fora one year contract.
We were excited, She was excited.
I remember in the beginning, in fact, we talked about it, how
she was like, man, never played before a crowd like this.
It's nice to have on my side like this is great.
(04:21):
She seemed super pumped. But in the very beginning now we
never really saw her have like her big breakout game.
We saw breakout moments, We saw times where she helped us close
a game or two, but we didn't seeit.
And we ourselves were like holding our breath, like, I
can't wait to be excited. We have Dwana Bonner.
We know she's excellent. She played excellent last year.
(04:43):
Like I remember us playing against her being like, man,
this Dwana Bonner chick is really good.
Like, it's not like, oh, this should be expected.
She's older. She probably wasn't going to be
great. That is not what her expectation
nor the fevers nor the fans. Everyone kind of thought this
was going to be a bigger thing, right?
So she comes on the team not really working so far.
(05:06):
I assumed it was a fit situation, Like we're just
trying to figure out, you know, where does she fit into the game
plan, Maybe have to drop some plays for her, who knows.
I was assuming it would work outeventually, but at some point
she got moved to the bench, which at the time everybody
seemed fine with. But then she not only got moved
(05:27):
to the bench, she wasn't even the First off the bench.
After a while, that started to be Sophie.
So she was like a second off thebench situation.
And I think looking back now, hindsight not only being 2020,
but we know from her own perspective that that was not
where she wanted to be. You know, she didn't outright
say I didn't want to be a bench player, but she left after
(05:50):
taking a leave of absence for personal reasons, which we now
and now was her trying to figureout her life and if she wanted
to finish the season off with the Fever and then asked to be
waived, which isn't the worst way for things to have ended
with the fever. In a lot of ways it's good.
It gives us cap space and it gives us the ability to pick up
(06:12):
anyone we need to like Airy, we picked up somebody we wanted to,
which we couldn't have done if she if we had to trade.
But it is an interesting way. Like me personally, I have never
liked when people take this tactas far as being on the player
side. I don't feel like she screwed
(06:32):
us. I do feel like it's a business
and it's her career, so a whole year somewhere you don't want to
be. She doesn't have a lot of years
left. She's 37 years old.
I get it. I'm not like, oh, Dewan is the
worst, but I've I've never likedwhen players do that.
I'm not like, Oh yeah, that's great, It's fine.
I didn't really like it that much.
(06:53):
I would have liked her to continue trying.
Like when she post, she actuallyposted and I don't know who she
was responding to specifically, but she posted something saying
like quitter. I've never been a quitter, I've
never done it before. I'm never going to blah, blah,
all this stuff. And I was like, you did quit the
team. Like that is what you did, which
(07:14):
is once again, you're in a toughsituation.
You got to make your own life choices.
You know, we weren't using you. That's like a fact.
So the Fever also, it was very mutual decision and that the
Fever had stopped playing her asa starter and her minutes were
starting to dwindle. So it's like, it's not like she
made this up, like she's blowingsomething out of proportion.
(07:37):
There was work that needed to bedone to put her in the place she
felt like she needed to be. And I get it that she was like,
I don't think that the spot on this team is worth that work.
That was kind of like what I wasfeeling from it.
I also want to think of this from a.
It is a business, so yeah, the the.
There is a lot to be said about having someone who's being paid
(08:01):
$200,000 on an unprotected contract sit on your bench when
you are starting to get paranoidabout injuries.
And let's really think about this when there has been some
criticism about this in this path in the past, but I don't
think anyone could say anything about it, especially with the
performance that Kelsey Mitchell's having the season.
But Kelsey Mitchell I think is like one of the one of the
(08:22):
highest salaries on that team who might be maxed out at
whatever that cap is for her, which makes sense.
She deserves that money. Yeah.
And then there's Natasha Howard,who is another great grab for
the fever. And like we've talked about it
many times how we love having Natasha Howard, but it also
hasn't been the smoothest transition.
(08:43):
I definitely think it's been better for her.
But also like that's another that's a lot of money.
That's 200, maybe 50 for Kelsey,200 ish for Natasha, who again,
three time WNBA champion brings that level, that veteran
experience and that overall experience playing on multiple
teams worth it. But that's a lot of money to
have kind of tied up in someone who's getting no minutes and who
(09:07):
is have who has an expectation to get those minutes.
And I, like you mentioned is on a limit like limited legs.
She's been in the league a long time.
There's a lot there's a lot of stuff up in the air right now.
I don't think it's as simple as I'm upset I'm not getting
playing time. I'm I'm giving up on this team.
I don't think it's that black and white.
No, I agree. That's why.
(09:27):
Yeah. Because when you look at it, you
know something people will tell people young in their career,
whether it's basketball or otherwise, it's like, hey, be
patient, put in the work, peopleare going to notice you, yada
yada. That's not where she's at.
She has eyes. If she tells teams that she's
open to play with them, there's a good chance she can make it
there. And she doesn't have the time to
(09:50):
be patient. This is the time to go, go, go,
and she needs to be on a team where she can play.
So I totally get that. And you're right.
Like this wasn't the worst shakefor the Fever.
That's the main thing that doesn't put a bad taste in my
mouth about it is it does help. Like as a Laker fan, when we had
the Russell Westbrook contract, which was huge, I've tried to
(10:13):
purge it from my mind. It was many, many, many millions
of dollars. He's one of the highest paid.
We brought him over. We thought he was going to give
us a ring. He turned out being a horrible
fit. He looked like he didn't know
how to play basketball on some nights, can be completely
honest, if you weren't watching,that's what it looked like.
And then everyone was like, bench and get rid of it.
And it was kind of like, guys, we're paying too much.
(10:35):
He has to be out. Like if you're paying that much,
he has to be out on it. Like the person that's going to
replace him is like some guy wholike is AG league person.
Like we have no money on our bench.
Nobody is there to replace him. Having dead weight like that
contract wise is a huge problem.So like for that to get
(10:57):
alleviated is a really big deal and very helpful to us.
It's a problem we still have to solve, but we have the tools to
do it. We have the cap space.
I'm very interested. We kind of talked a little bit
about it before we started recording.
Like, gosh, she said that she would want to go play with her
wife in Phoenix or play in, I think she said Atlanta.
(11:21):
Those are like the two places she'd want to play.
Now the question is, gosh, how much could she even get paid?
Now good news for her, she got paid a prorated rate, which is
very similar if not the same as like a vet minimum.
So she kind of like already got paid at least a vet minimum this
year. So that's not it's less than she
(11:42):
was hoping for, but not the worst.
So if she can get any contract going anywhere and playing
meaningful minutes might not be the worst for her.
But like how much room do they have with Phoenix to even pay
her? And that's the thing that is
really confusing for me is if she wanted to go to Phoenix, why
(12:04):
didn't she just go to Phoenix? Like I understand, yeah.
The draw to play for Stephanie and for Coach White.
I know that her family, I know her kids live in Indiana, but
she's played in Phoenix before 80s in Phoenix.
I just that was a really confusing.
I was excited to see her in in Indiana, but I was also confused
by that call. And now as a Phoenix fan, I know
(12:26):
that Phoenix very recently just let go of Megan McConnell due to
her injury. She's been out then pretty much
the entire season and just signed for a year contract.
Keanu Williams. So we don't have the cap we
don't have. Like it would be disrespectful
to try to get her to Phoenix forthat money.
I think there's only a few teamsthat do have the space and I
(12:49):
want to say Connecticut is one of them.
I can't imagine she would go back to Connecticut.
I think maybe it was, I want to say it was the Valkyrie and it
might have. I don't think the Dream has the
the the space either. I mean, they have superstars
like Ryan Howard and Alicia Gray.
Brittany Griner was a big grab for them this year.
So I don't really know where shecould go.
(13:11):
And it is also fairly telling, we're talking about this on
Sunday, June 29th. This happened I think about 5
days ago. She hasn't been picked up yet,
right? You know, and she's a quality
player. So regardless of the fit that
happened on Fever, I think that there are plenty of teams who
have starters right now that arenot as good as Dewana Bonner.
(13:33):
So the fact that she hasn't got snapped up yet, I'm a little
nervous for her. I understand her shooting her
shot but right I don't know. I hope this works out for her
honestly, she seems like a nice lady.
Yeah. Well, I was just gonna say a
couple of things that I think this highlights though when it
comes to these decisions. When you're in a build back
(13:55):
season, I think that this bringsto the table how much value it
could bring to the league if we had more cap, if we had more
room. Correct.
Because I would be devastated ifwe don't get to see Duana Bonner
play anymore basketball in 2025.Considering the record.
She just broke with the fever like it would.
(14:17):
It would just be horrible to seeher career go out like this.
Even if it was kind of a back, you know, a backdoor deal or
things were being said and weren't shared maybe as openly
as people would have wanted. It would be just a big
misfortune to not see her complete the season on whatever
team. Mm Hmm.
(14:37):
Yeah, no, I agree. And that's why I love the
expansions. First off, what's clear is
there's not enough teams for theamount of talent out there, and
there's also not enough money for those teams.
So both of those things are very, very clear to me.
Only having watched the WNBA seriously last year and this
(14:58):
year, it's glaringly obvious. I'm like, what?
What do you mean? Like, like in the NBA, Aerie
McDonald would have been on a team starting?
Like, it just didn't make sense when she started playing.
Like, why is there a person thatwas available that can play like
that? And right now, for the amount of
(15:19):
days that Dewana Bonners has been available, how is no one
snatched up? It doesn't make any sense.
I'm not understanding it. It's just, I mean, you know,
they think the league is hopefully, I know they're
expanding and that takes time and you don't want to do it too
fast. So that's great.
But what are we doing about the cap space?
How are we helping these teams that you need more, You need
(15:41):
more than 11 or 12 players. That's not enough.
It's just not enough players. Anyway, before we move on the
other side to this, which I don't want to miss out on
bringing up, the per reason Dewana was not starting was
because Lexi Hull is not just playing well.
She has transformed herself as aplayer in the WNBA all she's
(16:04):
like a record high for herself in like every category.
And I don't like anybody who watches the fever is like Lexie
shouldn't be starting. We're way better with her on the
court, which I don't want. Like, you know, I wanted to take
a moment to talk about Dewana, but she's not on the team
anymore. Let's like highlight the actual
slightly good side of this wholestory, which is that we had
(16:28):
somebody who was playing more meaningful and productive
minutes than Dewana freaking bought her.
Who? Who could that have been?
It was Lexie Hall, and it's crazy.
It's kind of crazy what we're seeing out of her.
I mean, the only bad news about Lexie Hall starting is she's
probably out of contention for six men now because she was that
impactful this entire season. No, like that's really the only
(16:51):
bad news. But yeah, I mean, team wise, I
think this is a great opportunity.
Now that we know that Joanna is not going to be available, who
is going to fill that post role,especially going into this next
half of the season? Because we have a huge game
coming up and we've seen what the impact of not having Dewanna
for several games looks like. And I think there has been a lot
(17:14):
of folks stepping up and having great games that we've seen,
especially this last week. And then there's been
opportunities where it's like this is This is why not having
another big, another season big available is hurting us.
As far as post players, First off, Howard is really starting
to gel when we had just talked about Dewana and like that, oh,
I'm not fitting this much work needs to be done and only she
(17:38):
and the Fever know how much workthat was, you know, in order to
make me fit into the scheme. Like, is that what I want to do
right now? And she decided no, which I
think probably she knows what she's talking about better than
me. Probably a good call, right?
I think it was like, either she had to play something completely
out of her bag or they were like, yeah, we'll figure it out,
(18:01):
but we don't know the answer yet.
And she's like, you know, season's almost halfway done,
guys, we should have an answer. You know, whatever conversations
that was, she decided not enough.
And then whatever conversations are having with Howard, I think
are going in the opposite direction.
I think they're really starting to settle in and be like, wow,
Howard is this person who is a match up nightmare.
(18:24):
Like she is bigger and stronger than every guard in the league.
She is faster on her feet than every center.
Like, this is a fantastic player.
We don't need to create plays for her.
She can just like beat her man and be ready.
And if we need to force things in, we can force them through
her. Like that's the answer, you
(18:46):
know, because you do oftentimes see Boston, who I absolutely
love, have trouble if it's just like go time, we need to have
her go straight in there. She is sometimes out muscled
down there. She's rarely ever outsmarted
down there. She's making amazing moves.
Her pick and roll is incredible,especially with Clark.
(19:07):
But sometimes she has a little trouble just muscling things in.
We need a tough point. Go in and get it.
Boston doesn't always happen. Howard is fitting that role for
us because sometimes you just need to stop a run.
You don't need a pretty play. You need to get a point on the
board and then a defensive stop.And if you need a point on the
(19:27):
board and an offensive stop, Howard is one of the very best
in the league at those two things.
So it's not like she's like, oh,this is she's like blowing up
the stat sheet, but she's settling in and really seems to
be a part of what we're trying to do, which is pretty exciting
for me. Yeah, I mean, again, like this
is someone who has been in the league and has won with a lot of
(19:51):
different types of players, different teams, has played a
lot of different roles. And I think she is similar to
Kelsey Mitchell when you need something to get done.
She's a go to player because of all the reasons you've listed
before. She's a matchup nightmare.
She is strong, she is fast and she's very clever.
I think that's something that Alia Boston will get to learn a
lot about this year. Is Alia Boston's probably one of
(20:13):
her biggest struggles is she's working really hard.
Way too much of the time of the possession.
As a post player, you have to bereally cautious of when you
start posting up, when you startgetting aggressive, when you
start putting all of your weightand energy into bodies.
And if you're overdoing it, getting exhausted, getting
frustrated when you think you'regetting fouled because you've
(20:34):
wasted all that energy, I think that can get into her head.
And you can see those struggles impact how she's presenting
herself for the rest of that quarter.
So I think that's just somethingthat takes time to learn
because, yeah, Aliyah Boston's one of my favorite post players.
She's incredible. She continues to get better.
I will always be an advocate forher getting the ball every
possession. The other piece of it is
(20:55):
Michaela Timpson. So Bree Turner I've not been
impressed with. I feel like the coaching staff
has not necessarily been impressed with, I think we we're
trying her in spots, especially now that Dantes is not in.
So like Dantes obviously is kindof earned her spot as our second
(21:16):
best big right. But when we're looking at where,
who's filling this void? Kind of in our post, we were
trying Turner and it wasn't really working.
It was not really working here. But we just recently as of the
last game with the Wings startedplaying meaningful minutes with
(21:37):
Timson and I got to say that wasexciting.
First of it was exciting for me just to get the rookie some play
time because quite frankly, we she hasn't gotten a ton of play
time. But then what I saw out there
was pretty cool. She needs some work.
(21:58):
She is a rookie in a big spot ina grown woman's league.
You know, like, that takes time.She's going to have to put on
some weight for sure. She's getting out muscled and
sometimes outsmarted and sometimes targeted.
But at the same time, I saw bright spots that I definitely
wasn't seeing when we had Turnerin there.
(22:18):
And I saw moments with her, likeputting on her big girl pants,
you know, and kind of muscling her way into a basket and making
it happen. And I was like, oh, OK.
Like she was showing me that fire and that drive to like,
kind of take pride in her own minutes.
You know, you can tell she's like, OK, I'm out here.
I need to make this happen. Like I need to be doing
something while I'm out here andnot like forcing it.
(22:40):
I didn't see a lot of that, but I saw a lot of like, I'm here.
I need to make my presence known.
I need to be a post for this team, not just like a fifth body
on the floor, which is, I don't know, I'm excited to see where
it goes. What were your thoughts on her
first, like, real game? I think of the season.
I think she's just so athletic. Once she figures out, once she
(23:02):
figures out how to apply that strength and probably put a few
LB's on, I think she's gonna be another menace for this team
because she gives me a kind of aTammy energy.
I could see her leading a lot offast break opportunities.
I can see her with that, the range that she has, really
stretching out the floor and creating more cutting lanes.
I think she I'm, I'm very glad that when we were going through
(23:26):
the possibilities of people being waved or cut when all of
the injuries were kind of popping at the same time, I'm
very glad that Timson was not a victim of that.
I think she brings a lot to the table.
She just needs the time. Yeah, I was shocked when I
looked. I was looking into kind of her
stats and stuff about her and I realized that she's only listed
(23:47):
as 6/1 and I was like how's thatpossible?
61 doesn't sound right. But then I realized she has a
wingspan of 6/10. Then long 6. 10 wingspan and I
was like, that's why it doesn't when she's out there, she
doesn't feel undersized. She's not your traditional 5 and
(24:09):
we don't play her in that position.
But I, yeah, I was like, how could she possibly be 6 one that
doesn't make any sense, right? And then that's that's why those
long arms, really. Take found out she's part
pterodactyl and it all came together.
Right. Do you want a part pterodactyl
(24:29):
on a basketball? Team, I'm pro pterodactyl, I
just want everyone to know that in case anyone had questions.
Same here. We're very we're allies here on
this podcast when it comes to pterodactyls.
The other thing that she brings to the table and this is A1 game
sample, but it did get me excited because I have this pet
(24:50):
theory when it comes to our losses, right?
Because we tend to get blown outin the fourth quarter, right?
Like we've had the last like 3 or 4 losses, same game, well
thought first half that we come up on top.
Third quarter, it was different each time.
Sometimes it's questionable. Sometimes we're right in it and
(25:12):
doing great and just keeping it up.
But then all the time, all of our last I think 4 losses the
fourth quarter, we just crumble and then we have no gas in the
tank. We look like a completely
different team, right? Specifically against the Sparks,
like we had that game put away and then they didn't really do
(25:33):
anything different. They just we're able to
breakthrough like our defense disappeared.
And so we can go into why you think that is.
But one of my main things I've been noticing is we will start
the fourth quarter with our closing lineup on the court.
And I don't like that. I don't like that at all.
(25:53):
That to me really paints yourself into a corner.
If you have your closing lineup out there to start the 4th,
you're either saying we're goingto stay in for 10 minutes or
we're going to pull them at somepoint so they can get a little
rest and then go back in. Either one is bad to tell the
other team, you know, like, hey,these are clearly our best 5.
(26:18):
There's going to be a good 5 minutes, 3 minutes.
Who knows how many minutes coming up very soon where we're
going to take them out to give them a little bit of rest.
That's scary to do right before the end of the game.
It's also scary to leave them inthe whole time.
Because I feel like in both those situations, you see why we
kind of become tissue paper, even though like we've kind of
hung our hat on our defense the whole year.
(26:41):
Like, you know, Coach White's always talking about keeping
teams under 20 for all four quarters and like we seem very
capable every single game of keeping them under 20 for 3/4.
You know, like we're a team thatcould do that, but sometimes we
don't keep them under 30 in the fourth quarter.
And that seems to be the reason we lose every time.
(27:02):
So what I saw in this, like I said, just a sample size of 1,
was Timpson started the 4th. She played her biggest chunk
halfway through the 3rd and thenplayed several minutes into the
4th. And then Howard closed out the
game. And I like Howard having rested,
closing out the game. I like that a lot and that's
(27:24):
what I like. I think that could be a really
big piece to the puzzle. So I don't know.
I don't know. What are your thoughts?
I'm sometimes when I talk about basketball, a little rotation
heavy, like maybe I put too muchimportance on the rotation of
Subs and everything, but to me that was a glaring thing.
(27:44):
I think when you're playing thismany games in a week though that
that has to be a discussion. I mean that has to be
considered. There was a lot of basketball
this week. I think everyone is tired.
The injuries are stacking up andthe decision making when it
comes to coaching is going to have a huge impact.
There's been a lot of technicalsthis week, there's been a lot of
hard fouls. Melbourne on the Mystics that
(28:06):
are tooth knocked out by ChelseaGray in a very competitive game.
It's getting chippy in in in general and we're approaching
the All Star Break Commissioner cups coming up.
It's getting to the point of theseason where wait, wait.
Wait, who's in the Commissioner?Cup.
Oh, that's right, we are. Oh, we are.
OK, go on. But all of that to say, putting
(28:29):
that together, those fourth quarters are not just being
lost, they're almost being givenaway.
And there's a lot of factors that I'm seeing.
And I think the one of the key things that was driving me crazy
was the points in the paint in that Sparks game.
The Sparks owned the key. I think they had I think half of
(28:52):
their points or close to half oftheir points were all in the
paint, which is insane for for how strong our bigs are.
But I think we just got overwhelmed and I didn't really
see anyone making that push or taking the initiative.
There was just almost a, an OK to let it go at some point.
(29:13):
And I also feel like when it comes to decision making, I
don't know what your thoughts are.
The smaller lineup, I feel like it's not working.
I feel like we're going to it a lot and I'm not seeing the
benefit of that paying off yet. So maybe it's still being
tweaked, but I don't really wantto see that anymore.
It's not when you have Natasha Howard and Leah Boston.
Yeah, like our small lineup works against small teams, but
(29:39):
the times we've gotten beat mosthandily is versus teams that
have multiple bigs that are skilled.
And so it's kind of like, OK, great.
Like, yeah, if we're playing a small ball, we might be able to
win. Great.
Cool. Yeah, most of the league
doesn't, you know, like, we alsoneed to figure out that side of
(30:01):
the game. And realistically, if we have
our best big players on the court, we should also be able to
beat the small teams too. So it's like that's not a pitch
that's going to work most of thetime.
So I agree, I'm not a super fan of it.
I like, I mean, I feel like we kind of talked about this a
little bit a couple pods ago, but our game really shines when
(30:25):
we're not doing the transition thing because that's our thing.
Our half court really shines when we're getting a lot of
screening actions in our double screens, our flare screens,
picking pops, all this fun stuffin the corner are really cool
and something that you don't seea lot of other teams do, and you
saw us doing really well with those.
(30:49):
You need bigs to set your screens.
That's kind of the whole point. Yeah, you're going to have your
flashy guards running around, but without the big to set the
screen, it's just not happening and you don't see it happen.
Like that's kind of where you see our offense, our half court
offense start to spotter, I think is in those moments when
(31:10):
we're looking around and we're like, oh, it's just a bunch of
us ball handlers. What are we, what are we doing?
What are we doing? Let's take a little bit of time
just to pay the bills. Talk about Caitlin Clark, even
though she's out. But we didn't really do it.
Didn't the injury, it was a second time where it's kind of
(31:30):
just like the quad injury. We didn't see like a moment
where it happened and she just kind of came up lame after the
game apparently. And now we're finding out that
she has a growing injury. Obviously super concerning.
Well, it's nice that we kind of split those games with one win
and one loss. But obviously Caitlin Clark is
(31:51):
the heart and soul of our team, so that's a problem.
At first I kind of hoped it was like, oh, you know, she's still
coming back. We kind of discussed it was
going to take a couple weeks forher like conditioning to get
back where it needed to be for her to play the minute she's
used to playing. I was like, maybe this is one of
those things. They just wanted to sit her for
(32:11):
one of the back to backs, you know, And then she sent the
second one and I was like, oh, you know, I get it.
She's sitting both back to backsso she can be ready for the
commissioner come. But I don't know if I'm reading
too much into this. There was this moment where Lexi
Hole was miked up and they showed her in the game, jump up
and cheer, and Caitlin Clark jumped up too.
(32:33):
And then she goes ow and she nods and sits back down.
And I was like, oh, not great, not great.
If cheering. I'm hoping that maybe she was
saying ow about something else, like maybe she's watching and
somebody got hit. She's like, oh, ow, I, I don't
know. That made me a lot more nervous.
(32:54):
And I'm like, damn it, is she seriously just injured again?
Like this sucks. I mean, we don't, they haven't
really said much. They haven't given us a
timeline. They haven't said anything.
So I'm nervous. I mean, I think they're not
saying anything on purpose. It's a gamesmanship thing.
They have this very big game with the Commissioners Cup
coming up. They don't want to let the other
team know what to prepare for. I get that.
(33:17):
I'm just nervous because we literally don't know what's
going on with her. It's also it's a huge week.
You mean Caitlin has been injured, the situation with
Bonner's finalize, you're acquiring this new guard.
All of this right before this huge event that the links are
hungry for and playing against the links without your star.
(33:40):
It has to feel very stressful going into this game because
you're you have to have two plans prepared and they need to
execute, execute both plans perfectly if you want a chance
to beat Minnesota right now. They are just, I mean, they've
had their losses, but they are just a beast.
I would be concerned as well. Great.
(34:03):
Thanks. Keisha.
You bet. Thanks for that.
On the other side of things, Airy looked fantastic last game
versus the wings she started, which is kind of what I was
expecting. Like I didn't think it was worth
cutting Coulson to sign Airy forsure.
(34:23):
I don't think Coulson deserved that.
But since we were able to get Airy without losing her, I would
personally have started her overCoulson.
It just seems like her fit her ability on both defense and
offense to like get things going.
She is very active on defense. She was doing a great job of
(34:43):
taking Enrique out of the game. Yeah, Enrique from Dallas.
Yeah, she she destroyed her. So that was super cool to see.
But then also on the play creation side, on offense, she's
just got a motor under her and she's like, this is what I'm
going to do. I'm either going to score, I'm
going to create a shot for you. Be ready, you know, like I love
(35:04):
it. It's so great having her on our
team. So in spite of losing Caitlin,
at least we got something. Yeah, you've got a, you got a
capital M menace. And she's gonna be, I can't wait
to see her matched up against some of the the links because
she's gonna frustrate Courtney Williams and Heideman.
She's gonna, she's gonna be an annoying gnat to all of those
(35:26):
shooters. And we'll see if she can have
that same impact that she had against Zurique.
Speaking of shooters, before we move completely off, Caitlin
Clark, it was really interestingbecause Kelsey Plum, you
probably heard this, had this really interesting take because
people are always going to, you know, judge Caitlin super
harshly, which I don't know, youcould decide if you think that's
(35:50):
right or not. But I mean, she is the face of
the league right now, so people are going to judge her.
But Kelsey Plum said, is Caitlinhaving a shooting slump?
Everyone wants to talk about that, but did you know Sabrina
Ionescu is 2 for seven from three the last two games.
Page Buckets 2 for 17 the last five games.
(36:13):
This was before the last game, by the way.
She said it before. This is a 2 days ago worth of
stats. Marina Mabry 2 for 17 last three
games. Kelsey Blum 4 for 22 last four
games. Enrique 4 for 17 last three.
Chelsea Gray 7 for 28 last six. Bree Stewart, 6 for 20, last
(36:34):
seven. She said the entire WNBA is in a
shooting slump. We're tired, which is actually
not an insignificant point to make.
You know, that was just a socialmedia post.
You know, she's just kind of clapping back at people.
But at the same time, it's like,yeah, you know, when you talk
about the number of games we're playing, when your legs are
(36:55):
tired, you're missing from deep.That's like a fact and that's
just kind of what we're seeing across the league.
We're seeing it from Caitlin as well while she was in.
So I think we kind of hit on this earlier though, like the W
doesn't have the same money thatthe NBA has and the schedule and
(37:16):
the season is quite different. They are tired.
I think it is fair to say that that the last few games have
been exciting. They're high scoring.
We still have people shooting phenomenal percentages.
So sure, some of these big namesmay be struggling in certain
positions, but also I think wasn't, I can't remember which
(37:39):
team it was who just broke another scoring record.
It might have been Seattle. But there people are shooting
really well from the three, maybe not individuals who you
happen to focus on because of their media attention, but it's
how many We could pull the same sheets for multiple NBA stars or
(38:00):
multiple Euro professionals. I I think it just gets really
ticky tacky when you have so much pressure on a player like
Caitlin Clark, who's in her second year.
So she's having a couple of rough games.
I think it's crazy to call that a slump.
She also is coming. She's dealing with an injury
coming back. Yeah, everyone's tired, multiple
(38:20):
injuries. People are playing probably more
minutes than their coaches wouldlike them to, especially in
these key roles when you're a point guard.
Should. I mean, we want our superstars
to play as much as they can. But if you're up by 40 and
you're forced to keep your starters in because you have no
one on your bench, like that's not great.
No, absolutely. And that's the, I was listening
to a podcast that your wife sentme that had Sue Bird and Howard
(38:45):
talking. It was fantastic.
Check it out. But they were talking about this
issue with reffing and how it's kind of crazy that the and the
WNBA plays shorter minutes, 40 game, 40 minutes per game versus
48. But they still have one extra
foul, which they mentioned was aholdover from DNBA, meaning that
(39:09):
the NBA used to have that many fouls.
They changed it. But when you look at that plus
the small roster size, it's thisreally kind of crazy situation
where you have women playing less minutes but allowed to have
more fouls. And it doesn't make any sense.
Like that's when you talk about this being a physical league.
(39:32):
Why are we allowing? Like if you let that many people
have that many fouls, that's that many more heavy fouls on
your stars. And why is that allowed?
It doesn't make any sense. I mean, not to talk about it,
you know, our clear competitors podcast, but Sue Bird, I mean
her, her, the the depth and breadth of knowledge that she
(39:54):
has about basketball when it comes to college and
professional international, likeon the on the Olympic level, she
is just so she's so well thoughtout when it comes to those types
of situations. Like yes, we want to have our.
Incredible teams play, and by giving them this additional
(40:15):
foul, it keeps those players on the court more.
And that's exciting. But exactly that now you have
these players on really small rosters getting more physical,
having, you know, the WS, a physical league.
They're having more opportunities to have all of
this, you know, violence basically acted against them.
(40:36):
And the league is putting their stamp on saying, yes, that's
allowed. Yeah, we actually, you just so
you know, you didn't use all your fouls last week.
You should probably be fouling alittle more.
You know, people, players hate fouling out.
If they didn't have 6 fouls, then you wouldn't have as many
people going to five. You'd have more people that get
(40:58):
to 4 and are like, gosh, I really need to cool this down.
You know, like. I think that I think that's, I
think that's that is especially because of the injuries.
That's something that I wish again, could be discussed and
considered. How many like, gosh, I wanna, I
know Melbourne got hurt this week, lost a tooth.
I know Lexi held for Phoenix, punctured her lung in New York,
(41:22):
had to take a train back to get back to Phoenix.
I know that Ryan Howard went outtoday with a hip injury.
It's it's a lot. It's a lot.
And their physical games, lots of games.
I think we have to really consider if you know the powers
that be, how are we keeping the players safe?
How are we keeping their careerslong?
Are the officials as trained as they should be?
(41:44):
And are we paying them enough that if a situation happens
where they're considering retirement, they can comfortably
retire instead of creating this chaotic narrative that's now
anyone is talking about? Mm hmm.
On that very bright note, let's move on to our big game we have
coming up on Tuesday versus Minneapolis.
(42:08):
It is the Commissioners Cup game.
As a reminder, guys, that means that the entire team is going to
split $500,000 plus a certain amount of crypto.
I'm not sure exactly how much, but they're getting that too.
That is a lot of money for our players.
Not all the players are Caitlin Clark and are on every single
(42:30):
commercial that comes up during the game, which I'm happy for
her, but not all of them are millionaires.
Remember that. So this is a life changing
amount of money for some of our bench players and a good amount
of money for even our starters. So this is a big deal.
How are we going to do Keisha? What's going to happen?
(42:51):
Well, I just have to say this, and I'm going to say it now so I
can get it out there. Collier is having a
record-breaking year. I think she is the stand out.
Don't get mad at people. I think she's the stand out only
option really for MVP and I think that she is basically
(43:16):
unguardable. If you can shut her down.
If we have, you can, Henry. McDonald though, right?
It's really, it's really all about shutting down Collier and
then making sure that everyone else feels pressured to take
uncomfortable shots because if their feet are set, the Lynx are
gonna score. They're very aggressive, they're
very fast, they're super disciplined.
(43:37):
Cheryl Reeves is one of the mostintense coaches in the league
and she demands perfection. So this is gonna be a tough
game, not unwinnable, but we just have to.
We can't give up a fourth quarter to the Lynx.
It's just not possible. We have to play really great
basketball each quarter, have tolimit the turnovers and we
cannot let them dictate the paceof the game.
(43:59):
Courtney Williams and Collier had the type of chemistry that
Mitchell and pardon me, that Clark and Boston have that
Mitchell has with Howard. It it's it's crazy how they can
find each other. And then you have people coming
off the bench like Jay Shepherd who's huge down low.
You have Kayla McBride who can shoot from anywhere behind the
(44:22):
arc. It's just a very stacked and
talented team. Oh, I mean Alana Thomas coming
off the bench is another big post player and all of them are
fast and they can all shoot the three.
Great. Now here's what we have on our
side. Got Aaron McDonald, who was
sitting on her couch last week, not playing.
(44:44):
But we also have some great shooters.
That's the nice thing is that wecan get very hot and we have
some players that are playing lights out from beyond the
three. So we do always have that in our
pocket. I hope the fourth quarter
doesn't come back to bite us. But I got good news for you
friends out there. We are going to have a second
(45:06):
episode. We're going to recap that
Commissioners Cup game later on this week and we'll also just
briefly touch on the upcoming the other two games because we
got the Aces on Thursday and on Saturday we have the Sparks
again. So we got a big week of
basketball. But with that, I just want to
thank you guys for listening. I hope you guys have a great
(45:28):
week. I hope all of your groins are
fine and that there's not a sneaky injury waiting there for
you. Hopefully not.
Hopefully it didn't just jinx you, but thanks once again for
listening and we'll see you nexttime on the Fever Replay
podcast. Stretch, Stretch all.
(45:51):
Right.
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