PHOENIX — At Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Sunday morning, several people wore orange hats and graphic tees from the 2024 WNBA All-Star Game the night prior. All of them were on cloud nine from getting to witness 24 of the world’s greatest basketball players go at it, resulting in Team WNBA trouncing Team USA 117-109 behind All-Star MVP Arike Ogunbowale’s 34-point explosion. Two elderly women had traveled from Raleigh, North Carolina, and it was one’s first-ever basketball game. “It’s only going to get better,” she said.
WNBA players have repeatedly proved that the bar is never too high. While the league’s growth still feels like it’s only on the precipice of its fullest potential, this year’s All-Star Weekend was a mesh point.
To kick it off on Thursday, July 18, Phoenix Mercury lifer and WNBA all-time leading scorer Diana Taurasi had two courts named after her at the Mercury’s newly opened $100 million practice facility. “You deserve it,” Seattle Storm guard and 2024 Paris Olympian Jewell Loyd told Taurasi. Reflexively, Taurasi replied, “No, we deserve it.”
On Friday, July 19, recently retired and extremely decorated legends of basketball and soccer Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe held a live taping of their A Touch More podcast during a brunch hosted jointly by TOGETHXR and the Golden State Valkyries, the WNBA’s expansion franchise debuting next season. During the recording, Bird shared her overarching takeaway from the oft-divisive narratives spun from an intensified, uneducated microscope on the first half of the WNBA season: “Two truths.”
Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark has generated immense mainstream intrigue, and countless players before her had placed the league on an upward trajectory in recent years.
The WNBA is physical and unforgiving, and the veterans do not hold any animosity toward this rookie class.
So on, so forth.
At a sold-out (16,407) Footprint Center, the 2024 All-Star Game provided subtle yet significant illustrations of harmony between generations. In fact, multiple truths intertwined to underscore one universal truth. As esteemed women’s sports journalist Arielle Chambers first wrote to Facebook in 2016, “The WNBA is so important.”
Team WNBA coach and first-ever Mercury head coach (and overall hoops trailblazer) Cheryl Miller, beloved hometown icons Taurasi (who pounded her heart and mouthed “love you”) and Brittney Griner, two-time WNBA MVP and reigning back-to-back WNBA champion A’ja Wilson, Clark, Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese, and everyone in between earned ear-piercing cheers during player introductions. And if there were any doubt that the WNBA will sustain this momentum, UConn star guard and probable 2025 No. 1 overall pick Paige Bueckers might have been the most popular person there.
The game opened with an immediate three from Team USA’s Taurasi, and the first quarter ended with an aggressive rebound and put-back from Team WNBA’s Reese, who became the first rookie to record a double-double in an All-Star Game. Throughout the game, it was hard not to get sentimental about watching Reese battle Wilson in the post — each donned one leg sleeve, which Reese only wears because Wilson did first.
“That’s crazy that that’s even a thing,” Wilson said of her influence on younger players after the game. “I feel like I had those moments with Candace [Parker] a lot, so now that I’m having those moments, it’s special.”
The arena particularly swelled when Clark’s 10th and final assist came from a no-look dish to Reese on the low block — teammates for the first time for Team WNBA after so many people have worked so hard to pit them against each other. Clark finished one shy of Bird’s All-Star Game assists record, but broke the record for rookie assists by setting up Ogunbowale for a three. It was one of five threes drained in a 21-point third quarter by Ogunbowale, whose 34 points are the most ever scored in a WNBA All-Star Game — after going scoreless in the first half. Ogunbowale also won All-Star MVP in 2021 (the last time it was Team WNBA vs. Team USA), joining Lisa Leslie, Maya Moore, and Swin Cash as the only players with multiple All-Star MVPs.
Many indicators of the league’s outrageous depth were on display, including Ogunbowale’s record-setting night overshadowing the fact that Team USA’s Breanna Stewart tied Jewell Loyd’s previous record of 31 points (set just a year ago). The entire Team WNBA bench sprinted to the opposite corner after Indiana Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell hit a three falling down as time expired on the third quarter. In the fourth, “MVP” chants burst out when Wilson stepped to the line and for Ogunbowale moments later.
“If anything, it shows how good this league is,” Clark said afterward when asked about Team WNBA beating Team USA ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, as was the case in 2021. “It shows how much talent is in this league and how you have to show up and prepare every single night because there’s a lot of players that aren’t even here on All-Star Weekend that can be here in these moments, too.”
To that point, Las Vegas Aces guard Sydney Colson had trouble making it back to her seat after halftime because so many people wanted photos with her. One woman stood up from her seat and yelled, “That’s the face of the league right there!” While that call-out was specific to Colson’s nickname, it also served as a reminder that the WNBA is stacked with face-of-the-league candidates. The fans at the airport couldn’t pick just one, and they don’t have to.
It’s only going to get better.
