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MA VoepelESPN.com
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- MA Voepel covers the WNBA, women’s collegiate basketball and other collegiate sports for espnW. Voepel began covering women’s basketball in 1984 and has been with ESPN since 1996.
The Phoenix Mercury announced Thursday that Skylar Diggins-Smith will miss the last two regular season games this season. The Mercury also put her contract on hold, so she won’t be returning in 2022 even if the team makes the playoffs.
Heading into Thursday night’s games, Phoenix are 14-20 overall in a four-way tie, with five teams battling for the last two playoff spots. The Los Angeles Sparks, who play Thursday, are eliminated with a loss. Phoenix ends the season with the Dallas Wings on Friday and Chicago Sky on Sunday. Since winning the franchise’s second title in 2009, the Mercury have only missed the playoffs once, in 2012.
But 2022 has been a very difficult one for the Mercury under first-year head coach Vanessa Nygaard, beginning with Russia’s incarceration of Brittney Griner in February. Diggins-Smith and Diana Taurasi had a confrontation on the bench in May, Tina Charles left the team in June, Diggins-Smith used a clown emoji on Twitter in an apparent nod to Nygaard in July, Taurasi is currently out with a quad injury and now Diggins-Smith is ready for the season.
Somehow the Mercury still have a shot at the playoffs. What does Phoenix need to make it through the postseason, and what does the future hold for Mercury and Diggins-Smith? We take a look.
How does Diggins-Smith’s absence from Phoenix’s final two games of the regular season affect Mercury’s hopes of making the playoffs?
There’s only a finite number of hits a team can take, and the Mercury took a lot of them. They won Saturday’s game against the New York Liberty without Taurasi or Diggins-Smith. That was thanks to an excellent defensive performance that kept the Liberty at 62 points while Diamond DeShields posted a season-high 25 points.
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The Mercury hit career highs in scoring Wednesday with Shey Peddy and Megan Gustafson but fell 86-77 against Minnesota. After the game, Gustafson spoke about the importance of the Mercury players continuing to encourage each other.
The next two opponents, the Wings and the Sky, have already secured playoff spots, but both are hoping to go into the postseason on a good note. Dallas won five straight games before losing to Desperation Mode Liberty on Wednesday. Chicago has been one of the best teams in the league all season and is the defending champion. The Mercury are 2-1 against Dallas and 2-0 against Sky this season.
Diggins-Smith has been one of the biggest offensive threats in the league this season, as a goalscorer and playmaker. In all honesty, her absence could really mean the difference between the Mercury’s path into the postseason and not going at it.
The Mercury played its last two games without Diggins-Smith. Without them, how will the starting XI be further adjusted? Who needs to level up?
A strong contender for the WNBA Most Improved Player award, Sophie Cunningham has been one of the rocks for the Mercury in a season of so much happening. Cunningham is a tireless competitor and team player. Not all WNBA fans like her, who harks back to her college days at Mizzou for her aggressive play. But if you’re looking for someone who always gives his all and never gives up, this is Cunningham. The Mercury would have no chance of making the playoffs if it hadn’t made the strides it’s made this season.
Cunningham started Wednesday’s game alongside Peddy, DeShields, Brianna Turner and Jennie Simms, who has played in 21 games this season after last appearing in the WNBA in 2017. Yvonne Turner has played seven games with the Mercury this season, having last played in the WNBA in 2019. The veteran, who turns 35 in October, played 10 minutes Wednesday. And Gustafson was the most successful player from the Mercury bench on Wednesday.
In short, the Mercury are like a patchwork quilt at the moment. They bear no resemblance to the team Nygaard thought she would be coaching when she took the job. But the Mercury players are also now in a position where they know it’s literally because of this group that’s still standing, and they’re going to play with that feeling of wanting to prove something.
Common sense would say the Mercury don’t have a good chance of winning any of their last games. But strange things can happen when a team has their backs against the wall after a lot of adversity. Maybe Turner, a defensive genius who struggled as a goalscorer, will find that in her in these finals games. Perhaps the Mercury behind the arc is getting hot. Perhaps DeShields will take over as her ability allows. Or maybe they lose both games, miss the postseason, and then this season’s postmortem begins in earnest.
Should Phoenix advance into the postseason, it will likely hit No. 1 or No. 2. How far do you see the team without Diggins-Smith’s 19.7 PPG – nearly 20% of Mercury’s offense – and team-high 5.5 APG?
Just making the playoffs at this point would be a huge accomplishment. The Mercury seems unlikely to go past the first lap, obviously. They would have to play the best defense they can and get hot behind the arc.
What is Diggins-Smith’s future in Phoenix?
Throughout the season it has been apparent that Nygaard and Diggins-Smith do not have a good working relationship. It seems almost impossible that both will be in Phoenix next season. Maybe none will.
Sandy Brondello was released after eight seasons last year after Mercury lost in the WNBA Finals. But Brondello landed another job at New York almost immediately because she is a dependable, experienced coach who has shown that she can manage players’ egos.
All of Nygaard’s previous experience as a head coach is high school level, although she was an assistant in the WNBA. There is so much to deal with behind the scenes as a WNBA head coach, and this season would have tested even a veteran. Still, Nygaard got the job, so she must be up to the task, no matter how tough it is. That’s how it is in professional sports.
Diggins-Smith had an excellent season, but it ended badly. She turned 32 earlier this month and still seems to have plenty of good basketball ahead of her. According to salary cap information provided by Her Hoops Stats, Diggins-Smith is signed with Phoenix through next season and will be a full free agent in 2024.
Diggins-Smith was drafted 3rd overall in 2013 behind Griner and Elena Delle Donne. She began her career in Tulsa and had to retire her 2015 season after nine games with an ACL injury. She went to Dallas the next year when the franchise moved and was a starter with the Wings in 2016, 2017 and 2018. She sat out the 2019 season after giving birth to her son and then asked for a trade from Dallas.
Diggins-Smith spoke at the time about dealing with postpartum depression and seemed eager for a fresh start in Phoenix. She has contributed a lot to Merkur over her three seasons and is a popular player with fans. But if this is the end of her time in Phoenix, where does she go next and what does that mean for the Mercury?
Phoenix’s legendary player is 40-year-old Taurasi, and the franchise’s other longtime star is still imprisoned in Russia. Now, Diggins-Smith could be on the way out, and the Mercury has plenty of issues to contend with in the coming months.