{"id":459783,"date":"2026-02-07T13:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T13:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/459783\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T13:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T13:34:10","slug":"how-the-mercurys-stars-navigated-a-difficult-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/459783\/","title":{"rendered":"How The Mercury&#8217;s Stars Navigated A Difficult Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/wnba\/mercury\/phoenix-why-were-exceptional-on-the-offensive-end\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Phoenix Mercury <\/a>struggled in 2023, and it was the first time they missed the playoffs since 2012. The Mercury finished the 2012 season with a record of 7-27, and after that, they received the first pick of the 2013 WNBA Draft. <\/p>\n<p>Phoenix finished the 2023 season with a record of 9-31, and that led to the franchise making some changes. They added another star during the offseason, and they <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/wnba\/mercury\/phoenix-looking-journey-head-coach-nate-tibbetts\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">hired Nate Tibbetts.<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Mercury&#8217;s All-Star center returns<\/p>\n<p> That season was a challenge, but there were a few positives. For starters, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/wnba\/players\/brittney_griner\/320144\" class=\"yard_link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brittney Griner<\/a> returned, and she had a nice season. She missed the 2022 season due to a matter overseas. The Mercury finished that period with a record of 15-21, and they reached the playoffs. However, they were eliminated by the Las Vegas Aces.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Phoenix Mercury struggled in 2023, and it was the first time they missed the playoffs since 2012.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-459783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}