#FromtheArchives: The WNBA's inaugural season tips off
Let's go back to the beginning.
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Hi, friends. Over the weekend, we saw the WNBA’s 27th season tip off in thrilling fashion, with BG returning to the court and playing incredibly well in her first two games, averaging 22.5 points, eight rebounds, four blocks, and even a three-pointer. Technically, her Phoenix Mercury lost both games, but there’s no doubt that Griner was a winner.
Elsewhere, the Las Vegas Aces looked terrifyingly good, beating the Seattle Storm 105-64; the Washington Mystics put the league on notice with a 80-64 victory over the New York Liberty on opening night, then lost to the Connecticut Sun two days later; Breanna Stewart bounced back from her struggles against the Mystics to notch 45 points and 12 rebounds in a win against the Indiana Fever, a Liberty record; speaking of the Fever, Aliyah Boston had a great debut weekend and solidified that she is going to be a problem in this league; the Chicago Sky and Connecticut Sun both proved that despite losing MVPs in the offseason, they’re still forces to be reckoned with; Arike Ogunbowale (27p, 4r), Satou Sabally (25p, 7r, 3a), and Natasha Howard (20p, 10r, 3a) dropped far-from-casual hints that we might have a new Big Three in Dallas; and the Curt Miller Era in Los Angeles got off to a winning start. Yeah — it’s been an eventful few days!
(ICYMI, on Friday I wrote about the off-court issues facing the league headed into this season.)
Today, I thought it would be fun to look back at some of the newspaper coverage of the WNBA’s inaugural season, so we can get a feel for how all of this madness began.
Keep reading for a couple of season previews — including a team-by-team breakdown of the First Eight — and a couple of reports on how the first game went.
Okay, friends. Let’s do this.