The recent explosion of skill in the WNBA has been well televised. From A’ja Wilson’s historic scoring season to Angel Reese smashing rebound records as a rookie, players are undeniably better than ever. WNBA basketball is ascending, but coaching and development lag a step behind talent. The WNBA is a young league, and teams are too comfortable existing within a conservative brand of basketball.
To put it plainly, double-big lineups are on their last legs in the WNBA, and it isn’t because of a lack of personnel. An influx of generational post prospects hasn’t been able to catalyze a tangible second wind for a genre of basketball which should have been left in the 2010s. The 3-point revolution has captivated hoops worldwide, and double-big lineups are just too contradictory.
Uncomfortable questions about post-player coexistence plague the roadmaps for young teams. Can Reese and Kamilla Cardoso coexist for the Chicago Sky without one of them developing a perimeter skillset? Can the Washington Mystics or the Los Angeles Sparks invest a top-three pick on USC senior Kiki Iriafen, who’s only attempted seven 3-pointers in her college career, knowing that non-shooting bigs already comprise the pillars of their young cores? Does redundancy become dangerous?
