PHOENIX — When the Phoenix Mercury acquired Kelsey Plum on Aug. 1, it was seen as a move intended to spark life into a final playoff push just as much as it was a gamble on reshaping the team’s future.
But in just five games since the trade, the Mercury have plummeted out of postseason contention. After going 2-3 during that stretch, including three losses in a row to the Atlanta Dream, Connecticut Sun and Washington Mystics, the Mercury find themselves seven games back of a playoff spot with only nine games to play.
While technically not impossible, that math makes it extremely unlikely that Phoenix will be playing basketball in October — something the team has seemed to come to terms with.
“All of [the losses] as you get closer to being eliminated are tougher,” Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts said following an Aug. 7 loss to the Sun. “The reality is that you’re not going to make the playoffs, and that hasn’t been the goal. So yeah, it was a tough go.”
The new question becomes what to make of these final nine games. What does success look like for a team that’s already out of it despite coming into the season with championship aspirations? How do you find meaning in games that won’t ultimately change the outcome of the season? Are new goals set?
These are all answers the Mercury will provide through their words and actions as they reckon with the reality of falling short.
Playing for pride
Although it can feel like a sports cliché in circumstances like these, “playing for pride” truly is the biggest emphasis in the Mercury building at this point of the season. At the end of the day, these are competitors at the highest level who aren’t going to simply throw in the towel. Especially for veterans used to winning, like Alyssa Thomas, Kahleah Copper, DeWanna Bonner and Plum, this final stretch of games serves as another opportunity to show exactly who they are.
“I think you approach it the same,” Copper said after Friday’s practice. “I think it’s about who you are deep, deep inside. Do you have pride? Why do you play in the first place? What is your ‘why’? I think you never lose that, no matter what’s ahead or what’s not guaranteed or whatever. So, for me, there’s always pride being a crazy competitor, and I think that’s this group.”
“You get to a point where you kind of got to roll with the punches,” she later added. “It’s always about having some pride. It’s always about competing, not looking too far ahead … Why do you love the game? You still have to give it your all. I’m past the disappointment. For me, it’s about continuing to get better every day and having something to look forward to.”
That mindset was evident in Phoenix’s Aug. 11 game against the Los Angeles Sparks. Despite being on a three-game losing streak, flying from the East Coast to the West Coast to finish a lengthy road trip and playing without Plum, who was out due to an injury, the Mercury scrapped and clawed their way to a victory despite committing 24 turnovers.
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The win ultimately did little to improve their playoff chances, and many of the same issues that plagued them throughout the season — namely the turnovers — again emerged. But, considering the circumstances, it was a game that other teams in similar positions may have just rolled over for.
“The biggest thing that we’ve been talking about is just continuing to play with pride, play the right way, play for each other,” Tibbetts said after the game. “I thought we did that tonight, and we’re going to keep fighting. We got a group that cares. There’s a lot of basketball to be played, and we want to keep trying to get better.”
“That sucked. I mean, road trips suck,” Copper added at practice, emphasizing how much the scheduling increased the toll on the team. “Having to go past home to play a game, that final game, to me it shows the character. It shows what this group was about. We wanted to win that game — no matter what the travel was, no matter what the schedule was — that was important.”
Plum, who had been in a similar boat with Los Angeles before being traded to Phoenix, also understands that the emphasis is less on what remains possible in the standings and more on what the team can build during the time it has left together.
Her words and actions in particular will be under a microscope during this final stretch. As an impending free agent, any indication of how Plum feels about staying in Phoenix will draw attention, and the team’s attitude during an otherwise difficult stretch could play a role in whether she wants to remain with the Mercury.
After sustaining a calf injury in the back half of the road trip, Plum will be off the court until at least next week. That makes what she said following the Aug. 7 loss to Connecticut one of the only things to go off as of right now.
“At this point in the season, there’s things that are out of your control, but what’s in your control is your pride,” Plum said. “I just think that a lot of times in situations where you know it’s slim to fight for a playoff spot, at the end of the day, you use momentum for this year to work for the future.
“It’s about pride, building chemistry, and there’s still a lot of games to play. There’s a lot of opportunities to get better, and you can’t take any game for granted in this league, so we’re just going to keep chipping away, and that’s all you can do.”
Ultimately, that may be the most important part of these final nine games: whether the Mercury can salvage anything in a season that has gone off course, and if they can show enough in their response to the disappointment to place a building block for next season — hopefully with Plum still in the fold.
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Tangible success
Pride is difficult to quantify, though, and eventually the Mercury will have to show what that mentality looks like over an extended period. If the goal is to finish the season with something to build on, what exactly would that look like?
Winning obviously matters, but it isn’t the only measure of success. With the playoffs essentially out of reach, the focus shifts toward establishing chemistry with Plum, finding a clearer identity, developing young players and, perhaps most importantly, proving that the problems that derailed this season don’t have to carry into the next one.
“I think the biggest thing is just our effort,” Tibbetts said at Friday practice when asked how he’d measure success to finish the season. “What are we doing to the Mercury standard? Turnovers are a big one. Defensive rebounds are another. Those are the things that we want to keep building on.”
Phoenix ranks ninth in the WNBA in turnovers per game, which at first glance, hardly seems like a glaring issue. But the raw total doesn’t tell the whole story. The Mercury have repeatedly committed costly turnovers in the closing stretches of games, when possessions become increasingly valuable, and mistakes can erase an otherwise strong performance. It’s been a recurring part of their inability to close out close games.
The rebounding stats, on the other hand, paint a clearer picture of why Tibbetts feels there’s a problem that needs correcting. Phoenix is 12th in the league in total rebounds per game, and last in offensive rebounds per game. That, along with the turnovers, has often led to significant discrepancies in the possession battle — a metric that can flip wins into losses.
During the aforementioned game in which the Mercury won despite turning the ball over 24 times, they were able to close the gap in the possession battle thanks to outrebounding the Sparks on the defensive end 29-22. Looking toward next season, cleaning up those areas would provide a more meaningful sign of progress than simply adding a few more wins to the record.
For Thomas, the only one of the Mercury’s stars still chasing her first championship, the simplest measure of how the Mercury respond over these final nine games is if they can play their hardest basketball of the season, even when there is little to play for.
“We didn’t expect to be in this predicament, but we’re still going to fight,” Thomas said. We’re still going to play hard. It’s just about us at this point, and what we want the rest of our season to look like.”
“I don’t know about success,” she later added. “I think it’s just about finishing strong and taking a game at a time. You don’t know what … the outcome will be, but I think for us, it’s just playing hard, trying to play the best basketball that we can. I think that’s all we’re focused on.”
Also important in the final stretch is giving more playing experience to some of the younger players on the roster. Rookie Noemie Brochant has emerged as a reliable rotation piece this season, but has especially been given more freedom during this stretch. Against Los Angeles, she finished with a career-high 24 points and five steals on an outstanding 10-of-13 shooting.
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Fellow rookie Marta Suarez has seen an uptick in minutes lately, as have second-year players Lexi Held and Kyara Linskens. While it’s unclear how secure these players are in Phoenix’s future plans, now is as good a time as ever to see what they have to offer. With the pressure of needing to win every game off the table, the Mercury can afford to see who can make the most of the opportunity — information that could prove valuable when it comes time to shape next season’s roster.
“It’s huge. We still have games to play,” Tibbetts said. “What we play for will still be determined, but it’s a great opportunity for our young players to continue to work and get better. [Brochant] had a really good game. Marta [Suarez] played the other night. These are games, these are reps that they need.”
While the expectation for the Mercury was to be in the playoffs, the silver lining in coming up short is now they will have a head start on much of the rest of the league in preparing for next season. They may not be able to change the trajectory of their season, but they can begin changing the trajectory of their franchise.
Major change may or may not be necessary, but these final games could begin to reveal just how much this team really needs. There is no postseason berth to chase and no way to erase the disappointment and frustrations of the season, but there are still lessons to learn and a standard to uphold.
