Subsequent steps for Mercury after Sarver NBA, WNBA Phoenix sale

The Phoenix Mercury have gained three WNBA championships and have maybe the best participant within the historical past of ladies’s basketball.

Robert Sarver, the bulk proprietor of the Phoenix Suns and the Mercury, is promoting the franchises. The Suns are an attractive pinnacle property within the NBA in a warm-weather metropolis. However the Mercury — the NBA’s “sister” group — has the titles and is an unique WNBA staff with one of many extra engaged fan bases.

There isn’t any assure the franchises will likely be bought collectively, though that seems to be Sarver’s intention, simply because it was for Minnesota Timberwolves/Minnesota Lynx proprietor Glen Taylor when he bought each franchises final 12 months.

The Mercury had been one in all eight groups that launched the WNBA in 1997, all then owned by NBA groups. The WNBA expanded to permit exterior possession (separate from NBA groups) beginning within the 2003 season. As of now, 5 of the 12 WNBA groups are affiliated with NBA groups: the Mercury, Lynx, Indiana Fever, New York Liberty and Washington Mystics.

The brand new Mercury proprietor(s) will inherit a company that’s an integral a part of the league’s historical past. Phoenix has hosted a WNBA All-Star Sport (2014) and the Commissioner’s Cup last (2021), and is famous for its fan help.

However historical past is one factor; the current is not on steady floor with the franchises on the market. As soon as new possession takes over, management will likely be extra vital than ever.

The Mercury had an inordinate quantity of personnel battle this previous season and sooner or later will lose the face of the franchise and one of many faces of ladies’s basketball, Diana Taurasi. How a lot hands-on decision-making a brand new proprietor or possession group would wish to do with the Mercury stays to be seen. Longtime Suns/Mercury govt Jim Pitman, the WNBA staff’s common supervisor since 2013, has been a part of the Mercury’s monetary choices because the franchise was based.

Sarver purchased his share of the Suns and Mercury in April 2004, the identical month the Mercury drafted Taurasi No. 1 out of UConn. Now 40, Taurasi is the WNBA’s all-time main scorer and led the franchise to championships in 2007, 2009 and 2014. It is unsure how for much longer Taurasi will play, however the Mercury know a brand new period will likely be coming sooner moderately than later.

Taurasi’s future, although, is much from the one difficulty the Mercury are dealing with. They let go of longtime coach Sandy Brondello final 12 months though she had taken the staff to the 2021 WNBA Finals. The Mercury changed her with Vanessa Nygaard, a WNBA assistant whose solely earlier head teaching expertise was at the highschool degree. Additionally they signed heart Tina Charles and guard Diamond DeShields as free brokers, and no less than initially it appeared to have a staff that may strongly contend for the 2022 championship.

After which heart Brittney Griner, one other of Mercury’s former No. 1 picks, was arrested in February on drug prices and has been detained in a Russian jail since, sentenced to 9 years in August. Then, stress was evident early within the season between Taurasi and fellow guard Skylar Diggins-Smith, and between Diggins-Smith and Nygaard. Charles then left the staff in June in a contract divorce, becoming a member of the rival Seattle Storm. By the common season’s finish, Taurasi was sidelined by damage and Diggins-Smith had left the staff for private causes whereas the Mercury had been within the midst of a playoff race.

The Mercury reached the postseason, dropping within the first spherical to eventual champion Las Vegas. Diggins-Smith is underneath contract for an additional season, as are DeShields and starter Brianna Turner. However the remainder of the Mercury’s roster is in flux, and it appears the staff may need to decide between holding Diggins-Smith or Nygaard if their relationship cannot be mended.

The Mercury have made the playoffs 14 of the previous 16 seasons, together with the previous 10. If the Suns and Mercury keep collectively, it’s going to present a continuity that the Mercury have thrived on since 1997. That hasn’t occurred for all WNBA groups whose NBA brethren had been bought or moved.

The Charlotte Sting had been additionally an unique WNBA franchise, owned by the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets. However when the Hornets relocated to New Orleans, the Sting stayed in Charlotte, bought by Robert L. Johnson, principal proprietor of the growth Bobcats, who had been coming to that North Carolina metropolis. However the Sting had been disbanded after the 2006 WNBA season when the Bobcats not needed to personal the staff, citing low attendance.

When Clay Bennett purchased the Seattle SuperSonics in 2006, he additionally bought the WNBA’s Storm and owned them for the 2007 season. When a brand new area wasn’t inbuilt Seattle, Bennett moved the Sonics to Oklahoma Metropolis in 2008 to develop into the Thunder. The Storm had been bought to a neighborhood possession group, Pressure 10 Hoops LLC, which stored the WNBA staff in Seattle and nonetheless owns it. The Storm have been very profitable underneath impartial possession, profitable three of their 4 championships for Pressure 10.

Detroit Pistons and Shock proprietor Invoice Davidson died in March 2009, and later that 12 months the Shock had been bought to homeowners in Tulsa. The Pistons went up on the market in 2010, and had been bought in 2011 to proprietor Tom Gores, who stored them in Detroit. The Shock performed in Tulsa from 2010-2015, after which relocated to Dallas in 2016 to develop into the Wings.

The Sacramento Monarchs, one other of the WNBA’s unique eight franchises, folded in late 2009 after the Kings’ then-owners, the Maloof household, determined to not run the WNBA staff and one other purchaser wasn’t discovered. The Maloofs finally bought the Kings in 2013, and regardless of an effort to maneuver them to Seattle, they stayed in Sacramento.

All of these conditions occurred from 2006-2009, in the course of the international monetary disaster, when the Houston Comets additionally disbanded and the WNBA confronted its best challenges. Whereas WNBA franchises have not elevated in worth the way in which that NBA franchises have, the WNBA and its groups are in a stronger place financially now and have grown their viewers.

That makes the Mercury a invaluable property — not an “and” or an “additionally” within the compelled sale — together with the Suns, and the brand new possession should have that mindset going ahead.