MINNEAPOLIS – It took two practices in April for Cheryl Reeve to really believe this could work. The new pieces that he had acquired through the WNBA offseason, not through high-profile signings or super-team designations, and the remaining players developed in Minneapolis in recent years might actually develop in a way that felt like seasons past.
After two practices, the players and coaches looked around the gym and realized that the chemistry they were feeling and how quickly the players and staff were coming together was a rare feeling. External expectations of Minnesotawho failed to make the playoffs in 2022 and exited in the first round of the 2023 playoffs, were not very high. But inside the gym, Lynx saw, heard and felt something completely different. Sometimes that kind of foundation takes weeks to build, which in a three-month season often means a team needs to dig itself out of a hole and fight its way back from the bottom. But for the Lynx, it became clear in practice number 2.
“The way we play for each other on the court,” Reeve said. “I didn’t know all the personalities, how we went through the trip, the road trips, all that, wins, losses. But on the second day of training camp, we had a habit of playing for each other. … I didn’t necessarily know what it was going to translate into, but for me it was a second day.”
THAT’S OUR COACH.
Cheryl Reeve is the 2024 WNBA Coach of the Year. pic.twitter.com/9qSrFPpNn5
– Minnesota Lynx (@minnesotalynx) September 29, 2024
It’s been seven years since Minnesota won a WNBA championship, which in Lynx years (somewhat longer than dog years) is practically a lifetime. Between 2011 and 2017, Minnesota won four titles and reached the WNBA Finals two other times. The core players on those teams were iconic stars in their own right (and in the WNBA All-Star sense of the word). When the 2024 WNBA season began, all but one of the most key players from that legendary career, Maya Moore, had their jerseys hanging in the rafters. In August, Moore’s was there too, joining Lindsay Whalen, Rebekkah Brunson, Sylvia Fowles and Augusto Seimon. There were always naysayers and whispers. Sure, Reeve had won titles while coaching four Olympians and five players in retired uniforms, but who couldn’t?
A season after Minnesota won its last title in 2017, Moore, Whalen and Brunson had retired. Fowles and Augustus remained, but the Lynx were passing on to a younger generation. In 2019, Minnesota selected Napheesa Collier outside of Connecticut. Brunson, now an assistant at Minnesota, said: “Nobody was yelling ‘Draft Phee!’ But the potential was there.”
One of the best streaks in the history of professional sports was, 12 months after winning his fourth title, talking about potential and growth again. But that’s how dynasties work. They have a lifespan: a rise and a fall; fast, gradual or not.
There was no going back to those days and, in some ways, it just wasn’t possible. The league was changing and with it free agency became drastically different.
Free agency actually opened up ahead of the 2021 cycle, and the Lynx made big moves, adding Kayla McBrideNatalie Achonwa and aerial powers. Across the WNBA, super teams formed as players gained more power to choose their destinies. He Las Vegas Aces added point guard Chelsea Gray to their already complete 2022 team, which won the franchise’s first title, and then before the 2023 season, they added Candace Parker. At the same time, the New York Liberty courted the two-time MVP Breanna StewartMost Valuable Player Jonquel Jones and stars Betnijah Laney-Hamilton and Courtney Vandersloot.
Minnesota threw its hat in the ring for some of those big-name players, but came away from free agency empty-handed.
Enter 2024: Other franchises followed the example of Liberty and Aces such as seattle All-Stars signed Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins Smith to join Jewel Loyd and Ezi Magbegor and the Mercury brought Kahleah Copper to join Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner. But Minnesota decided to take a path a little less traveled (read: less publicized).
“Everyone’s goal is to get better year after year,” Lynx general manager Clare Duwelius said. “We were very punctual in what we wanted. “It’s not much different than a basketball game where you take one possession at a time.”
With that mindset, Minnesota jumped into free agency to avoid signing the biggest names and grabbing the headlines. The Lynx wanted to address a few basic areas: players who could add offensive firepower around Collier and McBride, who had already signed multi-year contracts, and stalwart defenders who would thrive in Reeve’s system. Just as crucially, Reeve emphasized that every player who enters the franchise must be a fit for the right culture, someone who embraces the goal of exceeding expectations.
The franchise’s first move was a January trade with Connecticutthat received minimal attention, to bring Natisha Hiedeman as a backup guard and 3-point threat.
A day later, Lynx announced that they were re-signing. Bridget Carleton. His 2023 numbers were good, but not eye-catching. She was thought to be a rotational depth player, but the coaches believed she was close to a breakthrough, if only they could instill more confidence in her outside shot (Spoiler: They were right. This season, in more minutes, she’s shooting 44 percent from long range at high volume).
On February 1, the first day WNBA free agents could sign, Minnesota announced deals with the guard. Courtney Williams and forward Alanna Smithaddressing offensive and defensive queries for Lynx.
Smith, like Carleton, once assumed her WNBA days might be over. after the Fever After cutting it in 2022 (a season in which they won just five games), he thought he would focus on his Australian national team and the professional game overseas. Williams, who played for three teams in three seasons, came to Minnesota as a starting point guard.
In April, with room to add one more 3-point shooter, Reeve and Duwelius went after Cecilia Zandalasiniwho had been under contract with the franchise since 2017, but whose timing had not worked out regularly to come from Italy to play in the US.
Heading into the 2024 season, Minnesota’s free agency period was largely evaluated as decent: good enough for a team looking to keep pace, but not as impressive as what other teams around the league had accomplished. Swish Appeal ranked the Lynx eighth in free agency success. ESPN ranked them ninth in the preseason power rankings. “If all goes well, the Lynx could make the playoffs again,” the article said.
From Los Angeles, former Flies Coach Curt Miller saw Minnesota as dangerous. “It may not be obvious on free agent signing days, but they had an incredible free agent offseason,” he said.
Midway through the season, as the Lynx’s playoff potential became clearer to the outside, Reeve decided there was still one more move to make to fix some paint issues: adding Myisha Hines-Allenan undersized post, from Washington.
On his previous championship-caliber rosters, Reeve’s job was to take superstars and mold them into pieces that fit his needs. During the 2024 season, with the Olympic team, her job was the same: take the best players in the world and form the best team in the world. That often included asking players to minimize aspects of their own games, making them smaller than in any other basketball environment.
But in Minneapolis it was almost the opposite. Take a singular star like Collier and players who made a career out of being complementary pieces and make them the best team in the league. That, Brunson said, is where Reeve’s ability to find the right culture became most evident.
She was a part of the Lynx’s four WNBA titles and felt the selfless nature of those locker rooms. He knew what that second practice felt like during those championship seasons, and when the 2024 roster (question marks and all, new faces abound) stepped onto the court, there was something familiar.
“There’s a feeling that the team is either going to work or it’s not going to work,” Brunson said. “As soon as this team entered training camp, you could tell we had a chance to be special.”
.@minnesotalynx Coach Cheryl Reeve on the mindset heading into Game 3 of the WNBA Finals:
“They understand it’s 2 home games, but we’re stuck in the first 5 minutes of Game 3. How we go about our business will dictate everything.” @FOX9 pic.twitter.com/JdPkUhW5i0
-Jeff Wald (@JeffWaldFox9) October 15, 2024
The road from Practice No. 2 to Game 3 of the WNBA Finals has been a long one, and despite the ups and downs, she didn’t need the runway many assumed she would. But now, the Lynx are two wins away from returning to that familiar place where the franchise seemingly only existed. That Minnesota version is canonized in the rafters. This starting five? It’s hard to say how many other than Collier actually have a chance to join those five jerseys.
Over the next three days in Minnesota, those current players — the underrated signees and the unheralded, undersupplied Lynx — have a chance to accomplish what few outside their locker room thought would be possible this year in the Twin Cities: be a champion team that takes down a super team.
“Personally, I think after all those championships, this is her best year as a coach in the WNBA,” Miller said of Reeve, who won the WNBA Coach and Executive of the Year awards this season. “I think she has done her best coaching job in her storied and award-filled career this year by combining a high basketball IQ team that plays with great energy, but most importantly, plays the most selfless basketball our league has ever seen. seen. “
This article originally appeared on The Athletic.
Minnesota Lynx, WNBA
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