After Ugly Finals, The WNBA Enters Critical Offseason With Commish Hire At Forefront

This article was written by Karen Crouse and published on Sport & State, a new media company founded by Clay Travis that is built around sports, culture, original voices, and live conversation.

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Coach Natalie Nakase delivered a master class for both perfectionists and future WNBA commentators Saturday night during the Golden State Valkyries’ WNBA title-clinching 68-63 victory against the Atlanta Dream at San Francisco’s Chase Arena.

During a third-quarter timeout with the Valkyries trailing by three points, Nakase gathered her players around her and said, “It’s going to be ugly, it’s going to be gritty. Relax.”

Led by Gabby Williams, the Valkyries outscored Atlanta, 34-26, from that point forward in Game 7 of the Finals to win their first championship in only their second season.

Nakase’s words effectively redirected her team’s focus from outcome to process, which allowed the Valkyries to play with more freedom, especially Williams, who collected 28 of her game-high 30 points in the second half.

Kudos to Nakase, whose commentary on what she was seeing on the court far surpassed that of the broadcasters, who kept finding different ways throughout a game characterized by abysmal shooting and sloppy ball handling to assure everybody watching, “Both teams are playing so hard!”

Nakase certainly had a better read on the game than TV analyst Renee Montgomery, who was moved to say of the Valkyries and the Dream team that she is a part owner of, “If you’re a basketball purist, there’s nothing more you’d want out of this series.”

More assists (1) than turnovers (4) from the Dream’s Angel Reese would have been good. A higher FG percentage than the teams’ Game 7 average of 35.4 would have been better. And what would have been best for all concerned was Montgomery recusing herself from gracing the USA Network’s studio show since it was, if nothing else, terrible optics.

Elle Duncan, Montgomery’s studio co-host, made a point during the post-game show to heap praise on her for her objectivity, which was as problematic as everyone heaping praise on both teams for how hard they played throughout the series.

At the highest level of women’s basketball, shouldn’t the impartiality of the broadcasters and the herculean effort by the players be a given?

These Finals, because they were stretched for the first time to seven games, really exposed the league’s blind spots.

That the second-seeded Valkyries didn’t have a single player on the All-WNBA first or second teams lends the honor the air of a popularity contest. Of course, if Caitlin Clark can be left off 19 MVP ballots, all bets are off on merit-based recognition.

“All we heard last year, ‘We don’t have no stars, we don’t have no talent.’ Yeah right. … We got winners.” ????️

Gabby Williams silencing the doubters ???? https://t.co/ZiLnKQdm1p

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 1, 2026

If the WNBA wants to be taken seriously, it really has to dismantle its cliques and start thinking bigger than its niche following. Thirty seasons in, the league has outgrown its stakeholders in the media carrying on like cheerleaders.

It has outgrown officiating that is substandard, governance that is spineless and identity labels that have turned many of the once oppressed into oppressors.

I can hold a little bit of grace for the ESPN basketball commentator Monica McNutt, who went on Ryan Clark’s podcast, The Pivot, during the Finals and sounded disappointed that Clark, the Indiana Fever guard, fails to turn every media availability session into a discourse on race relations in America.

ESPN’s Monica McNutt claims Caitlin Clark fans are racist, Clark is ignorant to racism because she grew up in the Midwest, & praises Clark for claiming she has “white privilege”

Ryan Clark claims Clark has brought “negativity”

These people are insufferable…

(????: The Pivot) https://t.co/H6hBvo8STE

— Jon Root (@JonnyRoot_) October 31, 2026

She condescendingly said Clark, a native Iowan, “needs more time to find her voice” as “someone from the Midwest who isn’t as steeped in these cultural issues” as McNutt, who grew up in a predominantly Black Maryland suburb of Washington, DC.

This was the same person who also made a condescending comment, caught on a hot mic, during the NBA Finals about the singer Taylor Swift showing up for one of the Knicks’ home games. McNutt apparently hadn’t realized that Swift is a long-time fan of the team. It does make you wonder, though: Would she have been moved to say something if the pop star in attendance had been Beyonce?

When it comes to the WNBA, McNutt needs more time to find her bearings as someone who is too steeped in the racial issues that the league can no longer afford to propagate.

I don’t doubt that McNutt grew up in tough surroundings. But you know who else did? The late singer and actor Dolly Parton, who shared a bed with several of her 11 siblings in a home with no indoor plumbing and electricity. Yet she grew up to hold nary a grudge nor a single person in judgment.

She was famously private about her politics, telling People magazine, “You’re allowed your own beliefs and your own faith, but you don’t have to use it like a weapon when it could be a tool.”

In an ecosystem filled with Monica McNutts, the WNBA sorely needs a Dolly Parton.

The end of the WNBA Finals marked the beginning of the league’s most consequential offseason, one that will see the installation of a new commissioner at a critical stage in its growth.

To paraphrase Nakase, it’s going to be ugly, it’s going to be gritty.

But no one who truly cares about growing women’s professional basketball can afford to relax. The stakes are too high. If the league turns the hire into a popularity contest, it will do so at its peril.

We kept hearing about what a ratings triumph this series was. But for all the eyeballs that tuned into the Finals, the Dream and Valkyries did not come close to the 2.9 million viewers for this year’s Little League World Series.

Nor did they approach the audience of the first WNBA Finals in 1997, between the Houston Comets and New York Liberty, a single-elimination game that averaged 2.85 million viewers. Or the 1999 WNBA Finals decisive Game 3 on NBC between the same two teams, which averaged 3.25 million viewers.

If the WNBA wants to grow its audience in any meaningful way, it must have a commissioner in the mold of Parton who will wield their beliefs like a tool instead of a weapon. Someone like Candice Storey Lee, who played basketball at Vanderbilt in the 1990s before embarking upon a career in athletic administration at her alma mater that culminated in her 2020 appointment as the first Black woman athletic director in the SEC – the same conference, remember, that didn’t field its first Black varsity athlete until 1966.

Lee grew up in a military family, so maybe she would be able to restore a league-wide respect for the playing of the national anthem. Her father, Willie Storey, rose to Lieutenant colonel in the US Army, and his military service included a tour in Operation Desert Storm.

Or maybe the best woman for the job is a man, in which case there’s Mark Tatum, who has served as the NBA Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer since 2014. It is the same job that Adam Silver held before he was named the NBA commissioner.

The Valkyries demonstrated what is possible when everybody buys into a culture where the only identity is “teammate.”

“All I keep thinking is, I can’t lose. This is THE moment. This is my time to give it my everything for this community. Every time I’m thinking, this is the community I want to play for.”

– Gabby Williams on how playing for Ballhalla and the Bay Area motivated her in the WNBA Finals.

— 95.7 The Game (@957thegame) November 1, 2026

What might the WNBA achieve if its stakeholders stopped sowing discord and pulled together for the greater good? No better time like the present to find out.

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