Yes, I usually cover the New York Liberty. But as of July 31st, I will no longer be a New York resident, and so I will be focusing on the Washington Mystics (my home team growing up), which Swish Appeal does not currently cover.

On Saturday night, the Mystics hosted the Chicago Sky at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., and provided an exciting overtime thriller for their fans. Veteran guard Katie Smith helped close the deficit at the end of regulation with a pair of clutch free throws, and then all but guaranteed the win with a three-point basket in overtime.

After the jump are some articles covering the game, as well as a look at the evolution of small forward Monique Currie and her importance to the team.

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I like to give the games at least a day to sink in and let the collective internet response bubble up.

Is Katie Douglas' poor shooting a serious concern?  Can we expect more scintillating play from Shay Murphy?   Can Coach Steven Key get more out of Shameka Christon?  Should WNBA referees be calling more fouls on physical play inside the paint?

All this and more in the Sky/Fever addition of "Around the Web".

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Could 2009 WNBA MVP and Finals MVP Diana Taurasi make it in the NBA? If so, how successful would should be? And what would it mean for women's basketball?

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After my earlier post today, I was asked by someone what I thought of the idea of women playing in the NBA.

To begin with, as Ian Thomsen described in his original SI article, the very premise that NBA commissioner David Stern’s response to the question of whether we’ll see a woman in the NBA one day does not exactly strike me as strong advocacy for basketball integration.

David Stern believes women could be playing in NBA within decade - Ian Thomsen - SI.com
"Sure," he said matter-of-factly. "I think that's well within the range of probability." He went on to explain his reasoning as well as jokingly ask that I seek out other opinions, so that he wouldn't appear to be pushing this most progressive and liberating pursuit down the throats of his players, coaches and executives.

It’s probably important to note that Stern built the NBA as a highly – some might say "ruthlessly" – image conscious and shrewd commissioner. On top of that, the WNBA is "his" project. It’s hard for me to imagine him saying, "No that will never happen" for two reasons: 1) it would open him up to the possibility of accusations of sexism and disrespect to women’s sports and 2) it would give haters that much more ammunition with which to demean the WNBA by association. Surely, he’s aware that the WNBA is losing money and doesn’t need anything that might even be taken as a hint of negative press.

Stern made the response he had to make as a businessman interested in the well being of both his image and the image of the WNBA. I have a hard time seeing it as anything more than that.

However, even if we are to take Stern’s response as genuine interest in moving in the direction of bringing women into the league, there are still challenges.

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I happened to meet a New York Knicks fan this weekend and of course when we got to the subject of the mid-90’s Knicks, we had the seemingly mandatory discussion of John Starks’ vicious dunk over Horace Grant and Michael Jordan…and the associated call by Marv Albert ("What a move by Starks who was able to sky to the basket.").

While it really was a spectacular play, it’s interesting that for "all" Starks accomplished what many of us remember is that dunk. Similarly, when I heard about former Phoenix Suns’ guard Kevin Johnson’s engagement to Washington, DC superintendent Michelle Rhee, the first thing I thought about was trying to relate Rhee’s aggressive approach to school reform to KJ’s dunk over Hakeem Olajuwon.

Granted, I was an impressionable 14 years old when both of those dunks happened, so being stylish and cool made more of an impression on me than anything of substance. But type "John Starks" or "Kevin Johnson" into YouTube and the first suggestion is related to these dunks. One way or another – either in the adolescent memories of adult NBA fans or in the "historical" archives of YouTube that adolescents of today may rely upon – these dunks have come to define the careers of these players to casual basketball fans, whom I would consider the majority. And who am I kidding – as a devout Warriors fan, Baron Davis will always mean more than his 2007 playoff dunk over Andrei Kirilenko, but it’s stands out in my memory, if only for the classic Adonal Foyle facial expression that it produced.

The problem for basketball emerges when we start to confuse dunking with a player’s productive skill rather than what it is – an entertaining event. For every spectacular move by Starks, KJ, or Davis – all of which came from players central to their team’s success in the playoffs – there are a whole lot of other spectacular dunks from unspectacular players that are spectacularly insignificant.

As such, the “purist” within me cringes at how the tendency to define players by their ability to dunk combined with the ESPNization of the game led to players like Stromile Swift, Chris Wilcox, and Harold Miner being considered NBA prospects for demonstrating the ability to do nothing more than dunk. Miner is perhaps the poster-child of how the NBA world came to overvalue the dunk – somehow people managed to reduce Jordan’s entire game to his ability to dunk the ball, thus making it reasonable to label (I accidentally typed “libel”) Miner “Baby Jordan” despite the fact that he had not demonstrated any viable NBA skill.

The problem is not our fascination with dunking but our (or perhaps rather GMs') obsession with dunking. And perhaps we just witnessed the backlash to the Swift-Miner phenomenon as dunker DeAndre Jordan fell to the second round after scouts figured dunking was his only real “skill”.

So it is through the lens of these memories of KJ and Starks floating around my head this weekend that I contemplated the significance of Brittney Griner’s dunk on Saturday.

Griner puts on show, and dunks, in Baylor Lady Bears' 81-52 exhibition victory
Then, nearly six minutes into the second half, Griner got deep position in the paint, pivoted around a Cardinal defender and hammered home a one-handed slam that prompted a rousing standing ovation from the crowd.

“She took her time, went up and rattled the rim a little bit,” Mulkey said. “Would you call that a clean dunk? I guess it was clean, huh? It ignited our team and the crowd. And actually, we ran a set play for her to get it.” “It excited me a lot,” said Griner about getting her collegiate dunk-o-meter rolling. “It motivates the team, gets the crowd sparked and we feed off of them. It gets us going.”

It certainly got Griner going, as on the ensuing trip downcourt, she swatted away an Incarnate Word shot in powerful fashion. She added a sweet dipsy-do reverse layup and a short jumper off an inbounds pass on BU’s next two offensive trips before retiring to the bench for the night with 12:22 to play. With their overwhelming combination of length and speed, the Lady Bears will likely prove to be matchup problems for plenty of teams — and they certainly were for the Cardinals.

It should be quite clear that Griner potentially offers more overall to women’s basketball than Swift, Wilcox, Miner, Darvin Ham, and Kenny Walker combined. However, she is already being defined by her ability to dunk…and there are already people suggesting that her ability to dunk will transform the game. But at least she is wise enough to push back.

A slam dunk for stardom - The Denver Post
Only six women have dunked in a college game, for a total of 15 dunks. "There's a lot more to me than just dunking. I'm not just the YouTube girl, like everybody called me," Griner said. "Defense is my favorite part of the game. I'm just doing what God blessed me to do."

Whereas Candace Parker also rose to prominence in the consciousness of male basketball fans with her ability to dunk, neither Parker nor Sylvia Fowles were defined by their ability to dunk because they were not really "dunkers" but basketball players with the ability to dunk either in the open court or if an opposing team gives her a lane in an All-Star game. Griner may be the first true "dunker" in women's basketball, a player who can literally throw down a two handed power dunk off a drop step over defenders and yell in their faces to remind them of the forthcoming poster opportunity. It is for her status as a true "dunker" that Griner is being labeled transformative to most lay observers. But what is the actual significance of her ability to dunk to women's basketball?

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It’s almost impossible not to be dismayed upon hearing the news that the Detroit Shock will relocate to Tulsa, which will become official today at 11:45 am (and will be livestreamed by Newson6.com).

While the WNBA does not have to suffer through the contraction of one of a second dynasty in as many years, it is sobering for the league to lose the legacy of a prominent team after such an enthralling championship series.

Shock leaving Detroit for Tulsa | detnews.com | The Detroit News
"I think it's a sad day if it's true," Michigan State coach Suzy Merchant said. "You certainly have to be disappointed because they've had such a successful franchise, winning championships, and you have kids here in the state of Michigan hoping to one day play in the WNBA. The state of the economy obviously is a major factor and that's such a tough thing to deal with right now."

For anyone who has ever planned an entire day around watching their favorite sports team, there has to be some measure of sympathy for Shock fans.

DC BasketCases
The BasketCases find all of this very sad. We hate it when WNBA teams fail. We hate it for the sport of women's professional basketball, but we hate it most for the fans of the failed team. No doubt there are fans in the Motor City who feel as passionately about their (former) team as the BasketCases and so many others in D.C. feel about the Mystics. We know there are . . . we've met some of them. And what's particularly sad is that the Shock failed at the box office . . . certainly not on the court.

On the other hand, there is hope.

While it may sound insensitive right now to Shock season-ticket holders, the fact remains that Detroit simply was not consistently supporting the franchise, despite being one of the league’s strongest. With new investors interested in bringing a WNBA team to a new city, it was almost perfect timing for Detroit to unload a team that it simply could not support given the current economic conditions statewide.

Rather than acquiring an expansion team with suspect talent in a league that is already suspect in the eyes of many sports fans, the WNBA’s newest city is inheriting a talented team that just made the Eastern Conference Finals without two rotation players. The team was within a few points of the WNBA Finals on the strength of the baffling athleticism of backcourt tandem Deanna Nolan and Shavonte Zellous.

If it’s possible to find hope in the uncertainty of relocating and changing management, it’s that this is a team that is easy to root for as a new WNBA fan. Tulsa could conceivably have a contender in its first year and that bodes well for garnering support for the league that Detroit simply could not provide.

As described on the Women’s Sports Talk Show this past Saturday, that bodes well for the success of the relocation.

Womens Sports Round Table 10/17/2009 - Women's Sports Talk on Blog Talk Radio (46:00-49:00)
I think that there’s an outstanding potential for one of those two teams [the Atlanta Dream or Detroit Shock] similar to the Connecticut Sun was able to start with Nykeisha Sales, Taj McWilliams-Franklin and Katie Douglas, and Shannon Johnson on their roster. So they had a fairly established team in the Orlando Miracle. If either Atlanta or Detroit relocates to Tulsa, then they are going to be starting basically with a playoff team…if you’re going to fly as a franchise, it’s going to be with a team that wins.

Furthermore, if we’re going to mourn for the young girls of Detroit who lost their role models, then we have to smile for the young girls of Tulsa who just gained a roster full of new role models.

Basketball Players, Coaches Excited For Prospect Of WNBA In Tulsa - NewsOn6.com - Tulsa, OK - News, Weather, Video and Sports - KOTV.com |
TU head coach Charlene Thomas-Swinson shares that excitement. Before arriving in Tulsa, she was a WNBA assistant coach in Orlando. She says the league will provide role models for young girls and will help her pitch to potential players.

"They get a chance to see it and it's right here in our backyard. I think it's an exciting time. I think it's awesome for our game and I definitely think it will be an advantage for us as well," said Charlene Thomas-Swinson, TU women's basketball coach.

Bringing considerable talent and positive role models to a city currently without a professional basketball team does seem like a formula for success. However, for a league still struggling to establish its legitimacy, the question remains: how exactly will Tulsa build this new fan base?

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It seems ironic that there is suddenly talk of a Phoenix Mercury dynasty at the end of a 2009 WNBA season that has been noted for its parity.

Yet when one professional sports franchise wins a championship twice in three years, dynasty talk is logical, if not inevitable.

Celebrating a Phoenix basketball championship| Valley of the Suns

Yes, a lighting fast, top-notch shooting basketball team won a championship last night in Phoenix, and that of course was the Phoenix Mercury, who may be on their way to a WNBA dynasty after winning their second title in three years.

Fans went berserk all around me, and it was kind of a shock to see fans get so excited over anything that happens in the WNBA. The crowd was loud, the fans around me were living and dying with every shot, and dare I say it, Game 5 of the WNBA Finals was one exciting basketball game.

With attendance, television ratings, and interest from male NBA fans on the rise, you have to wonder if adding the rise of a dynasty to the mix would create the perfect storm to elevate the WNBA to prominence. It could help people find a narrative to latch onto and become emotionally invested in rooting for the dynasty or waiting for its demise.

One could argue that a similar dynamic – the revival of an East-West rivalry – helped the NBA’s growth in the 1980’s.

Mercury 94, Fever 86 - For Mercury’s Taurasi, Trying Season Ends in Triumph - NYTimes.com
These finals captured women’s basketball in the most flattering light. The series between the high-scoring Mercury and the defense-minded Fever was pixie dust for the league — the women’s equivalent of the N.B.A. finals in the 1980s between the Lakers and the Celtics, with Taurasi of the Mercury playing Magic Johnson to the Fever’s Tamika Catchings playing Larry Bird.

Of course, the NBA's renaissance coincided with a lot of new developments at once -- a change in leadership, which led to a change in marketing strategies to bring the world face to face with a set of charismatic (and anti-charismatic) personalities. It was a time of enormous contrast and, like it or not, people like conflict.

League-wide business aside, dynasties fundamentally depend on assembling good players.

Mercury Rising: Phoenix Wins Second WNBA Championship in Three Years -- NBA FanHouse
Eight months is a long time until the next season, the longest offseason in pro sports. As its players disperse to their overseas teams, Phoenix management can start to ponder its plan for a repeat, a plan that includes finding another big body inside, according to coach Corey Gaines. Taurasi, whose offseason is going to include the legal fallout of her drunk-driving arrest in July, said re-signing Australian forward Penny Taylor should be the No. 1 priority. "Repeating is hard," said Taurasi, who has been able to do it both at Connecticut and as an Olympic gold medalist. "Expectations, that us-against-the-world mentality, which obviously, we didn't have last summer (when the Mercury missed the postseason after their 2007 title). But now we can look back on that experience and not let it happen again."

One obvious thing the Mercury has going for them is that their four player core -- from this season and 2007 -- should remain intact.

Mercury have chance to go back-to-back
A team that finished 30-15 overall and has the same core of players - Diana Taurasi, Cappie Pondexter, Tangela Smith and Penny Taylor - when it won it all in 2007. It's a team that should have its core intact for another title run next season.

Keeping to the present though, this is a pretty special time for the WNBA and women's sports.

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If Game 5 attendance repeats the sell-out attendance of Game 2, then the 2009 WNBA Finals will become the most attended Finals series of all time.

It seems that there is no better way to underscore the anticipation, excitement, and significance of Game 5.

Of course, the final and deciding game of any sports season is always bittersweet for fans.

However, if the first four games of this year's WNBA Finals are any indication, the end of this series could very well be a celebration of how far the WNBA has come.

Decisive Game 5 a fitting end to spectacular WNBA Finals - ESPN
...this year's Finals seem to have brought the WNBA closer to the tipping point of being more a part of the fall sports fabric, as league president Donna Orender put it. Certainly, a record-breaking 120-116 Phoenix victory in overtime to open the Finals got the series off to a blazing start. It has also helped that the Finals have included the league MVP, Taurasi, for the first time since Lisa Leslie and the Los Angeles Sparks won the best-of-three series in 2001. Plus, this series -- which had more than 18,000 fans attend Games 3 and 4 in Indiana -- has included dynamic scorers such as Taurasi and Pondexter, two other popular do-it-all players in Phoenix's Penny Taylor and Indiana's Tamika Catchings, plus top rookies DeWanna Bonner (Mercury) and Briann January (Fever).

I suppose it's slightly ironic to use a phrase used by Malcolm Gladwell to describe the situation, but tonight's game 5 just has the feeling of something special, something that resembles a story to enjoy rather than merely a cause to politely support.

Fever's season comes down to tonight | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star
The Fever's mission resembles that of Jordan's Chicago Bulls in the 1993 NBA Finals. As the Bulls boarded a plane after a home loss, Jordan wore dark glasses and puffed on a cigar. "Let's go to Phoenix and kick some (tail)," he said. The Bulls finished off the Suns. Finishing off the Mercury might be more difficult.

It's just good stuff and I almost hesitate to urge people who have not watched a game to watch tonight because part of what makes the anticipation of this game so great -- and almost paralyzing for me today -- is the build-up of the past four games, as Phoenix Stan captured so well in his post yesterday. Kevin Pelton of Basketball Prospectus puts it in perspective for us.

Basketball Prospectus | Giving the WNBA a Second Look
This post is long overdue. In fact, for many of you, it probably comes too late. The deciding Game 5 of the WNBA Finals is tonight (9:00 p.m. Eastern, ESPN2), and my plan to extend the series to best-of-nine has thus far fallen on deaf ears. You might have plans on a Friday night, or you might be watching the baseball playoffs. If not, the matchup between the Indiana Fever and the Phoenix Mercury is well worth the look. This series has been riveting for hard-core WNBA fans like myself as well as newcomers to the women’s game. While I may be biased as an employee of a WNBA team, here’s a sampling of what some other NBA analysts (and friends of BP) have had to say about the WNBA this season.

The series as a whole -- and really the positive press surrounding the entire season from NBA analysts -- is what makes this Game 5 seem almost overwhelmingly exciting.

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On an historic day for Indiana basketball, what happened to the Indiana Fever?

Phoenix's Big Second Half Denies Fever WNBA Championship, Forces Game Five - WXIN
INDIANAPOLIS - The sellout crowd. The community attention. The freshly accumulated momentum. The coming of age of a collection of WNBA veterans. The stars and the full moon were aligned Wednesday night in Indianapolis for the Indiana Fever to end Indianapolis' 36 year professional basketball championship drought, up two games to one with Game Four on their home floor and with a raucous Conseco Fieldhouse crowd behind them. But the Mercury weren't ready to let the sun set just yet, especially their biggest stars.

Phoenix Stan described how the key adjustment that the Phoenix Mercury made that led to them winning last night's Game 4 against the Fever was probably their spacing.

One result of the Mercury's spacing is improved scoring opportunities. Whether it be open looks or just hot shooting, three point shooting might have been a big difference in the game.

Phoenix Forces Deciding Game 5 " StormTracker - The Official Blog of the Seattle Storm
In a considerable upset, the Fever actually outscored the Mercury from beyond the arc in the first three games of this series, making 24 triples to Phoenix’s 23. Tonight saw the Mercury find its perimeter stroke, making 10 three-pointers – four of them by Tangela Smith, the WNBA’s leader in three-point accuracy during the regular season. Meanwhile, Indiana had a night to forget in terms of long-distance shooting. The biggest culprit was Katie Douglas, who was 1-of-7 from beyond the arc, but the whole team contributed to a dismal 2-for-18 effort. While the Fever was unlikely to continue its lights-out shooting from early in this series, the 11.1 percent accuracy was a season low.

In fact, it was one of Douglas' worst games of the season.

Catchings does it all, to no avail | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star
Douglas, averaging a team-high 17.1 points in the playoffs, had her worst game of the postseason and one of her worst of the year. Trying to help her hometown team to a title, the former Perry Meridian High School and Purdue University star scored just seven points. It was her second fewest points of the season, better only than a two-point effort on 1-for-8 shooting in an 84-65 road loss at San Antonio on July 23. "I'll have to kind of look at it, but at this point, you can't look too deep into it," Douglas said. "You have to be ready in about 48 hours in Phoenix.

Unfortunately, the Fever didn't get a whole lot of support from their bench either.

Bob Kravitz: Kravitz: Fever deflated for one night, but not defeated | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star
She wasn't the only Fever player who reminded us that the Fever were, in fact, the worst shooting team in the WNBA this season. Rookie Briann January, who has been so good so far in this postseason, had a 1-of-9 night. Tammy Sutton-Brown was 5-of-10 in the game, but missed some close shots at crucial times. The Fever shot just 41 percent in this game, and worse, hit just 2-of-18 3-pointers. That's a hard way to win. Impossible, really.

Nevertheless, the Fever remain confident heading into Game 5.

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